The Sopranos: Joke's on YOU

The finale of the Sopranos series aired last night. Just some thoughts on the last scene.

First of all, it's very clear that the show jumped the shark years ago. Arguably at some point midway through season 3 when HBO demanded more seasons than what Chase had plotted out, but certainly in the lackluster, sloppy, meandering season 4. Like Junior's dementia, it was an ugly, gradual decline, lightened occasionally by a few stellar episodes and moments of great writing, then suddenly darkened by classic shark-jumping action (Steven Buscemi, Tony's cousin, suddenly shows up at the start of the godawful season 5, even though we had never heard anything about him before and suddenly we're supposed to accept him as cannon; then fat minor character Vito and a gay turn -- yes, I am not joking, a gay character in a MOB DRAMA -- with several episodes devoted entirely to him in a gay friendly NH town).

A quick detour: the term jumping the shark refers to when a show begins to go to hell. It originated in Happy Days when the Fonz literally jumped over a great white shark on water skis.

HBO threw David Chase so much money that basically he had an offer he couldn't refuse. Then he put the same offer on James Gandolfini, who had come to hate the show and the characters obviously as much as its creator (their hatred for the material is only matched by their non-subtle disgust and contempt for people like me who have watched this garbage for years and years).

End result is a finale season full of blatant social commentary and parody of itself. David Chase hates television, hates HBO, hates Sopranos fans, and he rubs this in your face. Repeatedly. His contempt for the viewers was about as subtle as Vito's gay plotline... i.e. not subtle at all.

The show ended in a very tense scene in a diner with Tony and his immediate family. Lot of strange guys around, including an Italian guy who looked like he'd pop Tony any second. They're talking about onion rings, the daughter is having trouble parallel parking (tension adding), then suddenly, the screen cuts to black, music cuts, thirty seconds of black passes, then the goddamn credits.

Note it CUT to black, no fade-out. I really believe Chase did this to make people think their cable cut out or HBO screwed up. It was the ultimate punch-line, a huge joke on the millions of people who have made Chase probably more than a hundred million dollars in take home cash.

And that was it.

As any decent writer or storyteller will tell you, this is the cardinal sin. The Lady or The Tiger. Or in the case of the Sopranos, the fries or the onion rings. No conclusion... just a tripe "whatever you want it to be" ending. The ultimate lame, the ultimate cop-out.

Honestly, I'd be laughing my head off if I didn't feel like such a fool for watching the stupid show after the quality died back in... the year TWO THOUSAND. Millions and millions of people had been had, and David Chase got the last laugh on HBO (you know he had to have absolute creative freedom in his contract when he agreed to do the later seasons). I feel like one of those joke Star Wars fanboys who stood in line for months to see George Lucas' "great vision" of the absolutely stupid and terrible Phantom Menace. I really do want to laugh, but when I think of all the people out there who will say the ending was "brilliant" and Chase is a "genius," I have no urge to laugh at all.

- Josh

The Departed

I posted the following on a popular Internet fish forum:

Well, it's over, guys.

About a week ago I discovered the mandarin behind the tank. He had jumped out and was very much gone. Most likely he had jumped out the night before as I had investigated the tank in the morning and had not found him (a common occurrence in the past and it didn't worry me until I didn't see him in the afternoon when I checked again after work).

As I had attempted to be as objective and scientific as possible with this whole mandarin thing, I was very close to laying the body on a paper towel and photographing the abdomen (upon death and drying had shriveled only to the girth of my index finger below the second knuckle) with a timestamp to prove I did, in fact, keep a mandarin alive for two years in a nano, and in optimal condition.

In the end, I could not do it as I felt it would have been disrespectful to the fish because he was first and foremost my prized fish and the favorite in all my collection and not a science experiment.

As he grew and got older, I found I had to increase his feedings of roe and frozen Cyclops to twice a day. A large amount of food. This kept him well rounded and full looking. A week before the end, if I were to miss two days, he would begin to develop the lines in his sides and a slightly concave belly as opposed to his normal flush and rounded one.

As he was my last fish, upon his death a week or so ago, I had not added any food to the tank. The tank is unskimmed and very rich in nutrients. I have a bryopsis pandemic on my hands, as well as a fast growing halimeda colony that had all but taken over. For years this tank was accustomed to daily heavy feedings.

Two days ago I had awoken to discover a pea soup in the tank. You couldn't see an inch in. My first thoughts were that either the large brittle star had died and polluted the system, or the urchin had croaked and released the supposed poison death cloud of doom which we have all read about--before I go on, a word about said urchin. A tiny specimen, its longest spine no longer than half a sewing needle, which I bought a week before the mandarin's jump to curtail the bryopsis. As we all know, urchins are not good for nanos as they get huge, and can puncture LPS as well. I knew all of these things and took a calculated risk--by the way, the urchin is/was only temporary and I was going to trade him back in after a month.

Turns out the starfish did not die and the urchin remains MIA, though I suspect it's alive and well as my chaetomorph pile is diminishing, and I've been monitoring ammonia missions daily and everything remains at zero... as well as no further green cloud outbreak.

Getting back to the polluted water. I immediated mixed an emergency batch of IO and performed a 90 percent water change. After work, I got home and the tank was sparkling... LPS was out in full, as were the soft corals and crocea clam. Ammonia nothing.

As of today the tank is sparkling clear. I am, however, having pH issues for the first time in the life of this ten gallon nano.

Never before did I have to use pH boosting chemicals. The tank always stayed at 8.4. Now, since I'm no longer feeding... I'm having a hell of a time keeping it at 8.2. Correlation does not lead to causation so I can only speculate on the cause, especially now, as a number of factors are involved.

I can speculate on the cause... I assume the urchin is still alive, as I would expect some spike in ammonia after at least 24 hours of the initial 90 percent water change, and mostly I would expect more cloudiness. I think what happened was some kind of algae bloom in the water as it was more green than milky, some kind of backlash due to the sudden cease in feeding... think a flea population explosion after you and the dogs go on vacation and their numbers bloom even though they have nothing on which to feed.

As for the pH drop... damn... I don't know... but now I know what most of you guys suffer through, and everyone else in my reef club. It really sucks.

Sorry for the derailment into the state of the system. The mandarin is gone and I do not expect I'll be getting another. However, if someone wants to pick up where I left off, feel free to turn this thread into your own. One thing I thought about doing in the past is starting a tank with the spotted or target mandarin variety to see if there was any truth in the oft-repeated anecdote of the target mandarin accepting foods more so than the green species.

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It's now been more than a week. I'm using a marine buffer to keep the pH over 8 as it's still unstable. I fed a pretty good amount of frozen mysis to the tank and that seemed to perk everyone up--corals included.

I ordered a glass hood from Drsfostersmith.com. Once the water parameters stabilize, I'm going to introduce a false percula (ocelleris) clownfish, and then later a purple firefish. These fish are very easy to care for and feed. It will be a nice break.

In other news... my electric blue dempsey was found dead, glued to the Aquaclear intake. Found him a few hours after death. Best guess is something was internally wrong with him as this is quite common in this rare strain of fish... they are very imbred and scores of them often go out.

- Josh