EXCITING THINGS: B-Side Blog Attends The '24' Finale, And Yes, It Was Awesome

I haven’t written about 24 in a few weeks, but that’s not to say my love for the show has been waning. This seventh season has been great, and in a lucky turn of events, I nabbed an invite to a special advanced screening of next week’s season finale of the show. Out of respect to Fox and the viewers, I won’t spill a single bean, but I will say that the finale is great, with the first hour being particularly exciting (the second hour is still strong, but it’s more dramatic than intense — which is totally fine). And yes, several questions are answered.
Of course, one of the reasons why I may have thought the finale was so awesome was because I was in a theater filled with a thousand or so people. I’ve never watched 24 en masse before, but I can say without a doubt that it’s a fantastic way to take in the show. Everyone there was a 24 fan, and as such, there was plenty of cheering and booing and laughing, which only served to elevate the experience. There’s nothing like watching Jack Bauer viciously kill three people in a row while a teeming mob of viewers claps along. I really think Fox should organize special screenings of the show from time to time because it’s really quite a noteworthy theatrical experience.
As if seeing the finale a week early wasn’t awesome enough, there was another surprise in store for us (and no, it wasn’t standing in line at the theater in front of John Tesh — although, that was preeettty awesome too). The shocking turn of events was that this screening wasn’t just a screening. It was a full-on red carpet event. Who knew? Since I had a plus one, I brought fellow 24 enthusiast IndianJones along, and we were both surprised to see that this wouldn’t be a mere case of us taking our seats and watching the big shew. No, there was press and media and — most importantly — hors d’oeuvres. If there’s one thing that can trump celebrities and fanfare, it’s free food. I kid you not, IndianJones and I basically zipped past JON VOIGHT in an effort to get our dirty little paws on some turkey wraps and pulled pork sandwiches (the latter was very tasty).
Yes, this event was significantly more high profile than we had expected (plus, there was a Q&A with the entire cast afterwards), but at the same time, it was exceedingly lax with security. No one checked our names, and there were no cell phone and camera policies. Literally every single screening or taping I’ve been to has been amazingly hostile about bringing in recording devices. When I saw Benjamin Button, guys with infrared goggles patrolled the audience. Well, since there was already such a huge line when IndianJones and I showed up, we decided we’d save some time and leave our cell phones in the car. Heck, I didn’t even bring my camera to the event because I assumed security would be so tight (and I didn’t know there’d be a red carpet either). WELL. No one cared, and as such, I missed a golden opportunity to take pictures of Kiefer, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Elisha Cuthbert, and pretty much everyone else. Plus, we wound up sitting next to President Logan (who was wearing a dumb fedora). SO MANY TWITTERING OPPORTUNITIES LOST!!! IndianJones took great joy in telling me the rest of the night that I was experiencing an “Epic blogging FAIL!” Alas.
So, instead of coming to you with pictures of Kiefer et al., after the jump please enjoy some shots of the annoying pigeons that are preparing to roost on my neighbor’s balcony.

Here’s the lady pigeon hanging out, waiting for her man to come back with more straw.

The pigeons are growing their nest under this bench. In the foreground is my neighbor’s fake bamboo tree, which falls over onto my balcony with the slightest breeze.

The man pigeon returns with a piece of straw. Conveniently, the guy who lives above me has some sort of dying plant off of which the pigeon has been happily plucking nesting materials. As you can imagine, there’s lots of bird activity in front of my balcony. It’s troublesome.

The two pigeons take a break from gathering to check out the view. You can see some of their twigs under the table.

They’re kind of like the Jack Bauer and Audrey Raines of the pigeon world (see that? I brought it back to 24)

Unfortunately, the Jack Bauer pigeon hasn’t been very diligent about keeping straw in its beak, and as a result, there’s been a slight buildup of dropped nesting materials on my balcony. This is no good. I promptly kicked my balcony wall, effectively spooking the lovebirds and sending them off to another rooftop, seen here. However, I’m sure they’ll be back.

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