I watch TV. I used to think I watch too much and maybe I do. But I must be watching the wrong things, because in recent years I've found myself more and more detached from the "cool" shows. This is perhaps a function of my policy of not watching MTV or E! Fox, however, has some fine programming. I can't tell you how much I miss Celebrity Boxing and the Man vs. Beast specials. And now we're back in American Idol mode. Apparently my mother gets involved in pools at work and I know she harasses my sister with all sorts of questions, because, well, she just doesn't understand. Me, I only watch the auditions because I enjoy watching Simon tear people apart and the occasional arguments between the judges. It's been a staple of every season I've watched (maybe three or four, I don't really know).
This season, though? Not so much. And it's disappointing. This season too much time is being spent on the human interest stories of the contestants and even more time is being spent on the people who are there just to be on TV. I realize that's been a large contingent of their auditions since the beginning. But never quite like this. A. They're giving these people exactly what they want. Invariably, each season, at least one contestant is featured on the local Fox News about some "wild" thing they did or said in New York. B. They're just not entertaining. The best part of the show used to be the people who legitimately thought they were good, only to find themselves getting torn apart by Simon. And then they'd cry and swear and say stupid crap like "You'll see, I'll make it, Simon! You don't know!"
And another thing. Has Paula Abdul ever once said no to someone that both Simon and Randy said yes to? Seriously, every single contestant that gets through gets a yes from her. What's the point? And if Randy votes yes first, it's almost a guaranteed yes from Paula. And we still haven't had an episode with Simon walking out on the auditions, I always enjoy that. All in all, it's been a fairly subpar season. If I really cared I'd be outraged. And would have written that much more.
But that's not all! Fox has also given us The Moment of Truth. Brilliant concept, absolutely horrendous execution. Contestants have to answer increasingly more personal, potentially family-destroying questions and they have to answer honestly or they lose whatever money they'd have won. Sounds great, right? Well, no.
After each question is asked, the contestant mulls it over, stares at his friends and family who are watching nearby, and then answers. I mean, they're personal true/false questions, there's nothing to mull over. And then after they give their answer, some Eletronic Female Voice From Above says, "That answer is..." and then pauses. And pauses. And pauses. I think there was a 20 second pause tonight at one point. You know, to build the suspense. The problem is between all the suspsense building, the obligatory getting to know the contestant and his family, and questions between the questions designed to build to the next question, AND (I know, it just keeps going), explanations by the contestants for all their true answers (this is almost as annoying as the contestants on Who Wants to be a Millionaire? who would have to tell us some random bit of trivial nonsense about them or their friends or family to explain why they know what an answer is or isn't. You know what I'm talking about. End Tangent) you end up with like 15 questions being asked in a one hour show.
Tonight's show, meanwhile, was hyping the show as you watched. I can understand running commercials all week, but they spent the first seven minutes tonight recapping last week's show and hyping this weeks. We're already watching! The first question tonight was asked at 9:08 EST, and then they went to commercial. I mean, I'm watching this show to see people's lives collapse around them. We need more of that and less hype. And then there was the in-show hype. As I already explained, once a question is not answered truthfully, the contestant is done, one strike and you're out. So while hyping everything, they show multiple questions being asked to the same contestant! Let me break this down. They are trying to build the show around the suspense of the answers and the reactions of the contestant, their family and friends. But before each commercial break, they hype questions to be asked later in the show of the same contestant. So if you know that John Q. Contestant is going to be asked, let's say three specific questions, then you know that when he answers at least the first two that his answer isn't in doubt! They spend so much time editing this crap to be suspenseful and then blow the suspense to hype the show when we're already watching it!
I can't wait till next week. There's nothing I enjoy more than being unnecessarily annoyed for an hour that I could easily avoid in the hopes of being entertained by the misfortunes of others.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Overheard
I am, by nature, the quiet type. This is mostly because I simply have nothing interesting to say. As such, I am a listener. As a listener, you tend to hear things, conversations. I don't want to listen to other people's conversations, it just happens. For all the complaining about privacy issues these days, people have absolutely no qualms about yelling into their cell phones or having any sort of personal conversation that anyone can hear. So today, I will present some of the more ridiculous things I've heard.
This first conversation happened some 7 or 8 years ago, when I was immersed in my undergraduate studies. I had arrived early to a class and there were only a small handful of people there, among them this pretty ugly girl, who will, for the purposes of this conversation, be called PUG. Soon thereafter her incredibly hot friend, IHF, arrived, a little distressed. The following transpired (roughly, I didn't write this crap down, I'm not that weird, I'm paraphrasing):
PUG: What's wrong?
IHF: Some guy in my last class was drawing me.
PUG: What do you mean?
IHF: I looked up and I saw him drawing a picture of me. It was creepy.
PUG: Why, was he like weird looking or something?
IHF: ...No, it was just weird because he was drawing me.
Perhaps you noticed what I noticed. If a guy if drawing you and he's weird looking, it's creepy. But if he was cute, I'm sure it would have been okay. I am reminded of a Gaffigan.
But I always thought it was nice that IHF accepted it as being creepy at face value. In another life we could have been married (a life in which I perhaps had talked to her about anything).
This next conversation happened at a roughly similar time, but in a different class and involved different people. We'll call these guys DB1 and DB2 (douchebag for those scoring at home, or even if you're alone (I miss Sportscaster Keith Olbermann (triple parentheses!))).
DB1: Hey man, what's going on?
DB2: Same shit different day.
DB1: I hear that.
Perhaps you've had this conversation. I haven't. Why would I? Who the hell talks like that? That's the sort of conversation you hear in a poorly written movie. But these were real life people. I think, anyway. Maybe they were androids programmed to mimic humans and that's why their conversation was so bizarre.
Lastly, this was less a conversation than a statement. I was recently in Penn Station in New York, as I frequently am, waiting for a train, as that is what one does in Penn Station (that and panhandling, but other than those two activities, there's really nothing to do there). Our train had been announced, but was not yet ready for boarding. A group of passengers was huddled around every door and I saw a railroad passenger walking through the train collecting garbage. (People who take trains into Manhattan between the hours of 5:00 and 10:00 PM are the most disgusting, unfathomable garbage producers of all time, it's incredible. I mean, I spent one semester of college practically living in my own filth (and the filth of my roommates) because we were all too lazy to buy a garbage can (they were supposed to be provided for free by the dorm, but we got screwed), but still, I don't want to ride home in someone else's crap. End tangent.) So we're all waiting and I overhear this:
Guy Waiting for Train: The guy who pushes the button to open the door must be on his coffee break.
I kind of side-eyed him as I did not want to fully acknowledge his asinine comment and I saw him looking around rather proud of himself and his scathing remark. But here's what gets me. Not only did we just see someone walking through the train to pick up some garbage so we didn't have to sit among it. But it's not like the train was going to leave without us. The "guy who pushes the button" isn't going to say to himself, "I guess no one's riding the train tonight, better move out!" Just wait two seconds and we can all pile into the train and sit on top of each other for an hour. But no, good sir, your biting comments to your fellow passengers earned you much kudos!
Or is it many kudos? How do you count kudos?
This first conversation happened some 7 or 8 years ago, when I was immersed in my undergraduate studies. I had arrived early to a class and there were only a small handful of people there, among them this pretty ugly girl, who will, for the purposes of this conversation, be called PUG. Soon thereafter her incredibly hot friend, IHF, arrived, a little distressed. The following transpired (roughly, I didn't write this crap down, I'm not that weird, I'm paraphrasing):
PUG: What's wrong?
IHF: Some guy in my last class was drawing me.
PUG: What do you mean?
IHF: I looked up and I saw him drawing a picture of me. It was creepy.
PUG: Why, was he like weird looking or something?
IHF: ...No, it was just weird because he was drawing me.
Perhaps you noticed what I noticed. If a guy if drawing you and he's weird looking, it's creepy. But if he was cute, I'm sure it would have been okay. I am reminded of a Gaffigan.
"Life is a little easier for attractive people, can we admit that? Think about it, if a stranger smiles at you and they're attractive, you think, "Oh, they're nice," but if the stranger's ugly, you're like, 'What do they want? Get away from me weirdo.'"
But I always thought it was nice that IHF accepted it as being creepy at face value. In another life we could have been married (a life in which I perhaps had talked to her about anything).
This next conversation happened at a roughly similar time, but in a different class and involved different people. We'll call these guys DB1 and DB2 (douchebag for those scoring at home, or even if you're alone (I miss Sportscaster Keith Olbermann (triple parentheses!))).
DB1: Hey man, what's going on?
DB2: Same shit different day.
DB1: I hear that.
Perhaps you've had this conversation. I haven't. Why would I? Who the hell talks like that? That's the sort of conversation you hear in a poorly written movie. But these were real life people. I think, anyway. Maybe they were androids programmed to mimic humans and that's why their conversation was so bizarre.
Lastly, this was less a conversation than a statement. I was recently in Penn Station in New York, as I frequently am, waiting for a train, as that is what one does in Penn Station (that and panhandling, but other than those two activities, there's really nothing to do there). Our train had been announced, but was not yet ready for boarding. A group of passengers was huddled around every door and I saw a railroad passenger walking through the train collecting garbage. (People who take trains into Manhattan between the hours of 5:00 and 10:00 PM are the most disgusting, unfathomable garbage producers of all time, it's incredible. I mean, I spent one semester of college practically living in my own filth (and the filth of my roommates) because we were all too lazy to buy a garbage can (they were supposed to be provided for free by the dorm, but we got screwed), but still, I don't want to ride home in someone else's crap. End tangent.) So we're all waiting and I overhear this:
Guy Waiting for Train: The guy who pushes the button to open the door must be on his coffee break.
I kind of side-eyed him as I did not want to fully acknowledge his asinine comment and I saw him looking around rather proud of himself and his scathing remark. But here's what gets me. Not only did we just see someone walking through the train to pick up some garbage so we didn't have to sit among it. But it's not like the train was going to leave without us. The "guy who pushes the button" isn't going to say to himself, "I guess no one's riding the train tonight, better move out!" Just wait two seconds and we can all pile into the train and sit on top of each other for an hour. But no, good sir, your biting comments to your fellow passengers earned you much kudos!
Or is it many kudos? How do you count kudos?
Monday, January 28, 2008
Always Know Where the Bathroom Is
It's long occurred to me that there just aren't enough blogs. Millions of people expressing their mundane thoughts for all to read, while my mundane thoughts go wasted. Well, no longer! Besides, some people really hate blogs. And anything I can do to contribute more hate to the world is cool. I mean, not let's-kill-each-other hate. But, like, Dane Cook hate. And let the record show that I was hating Dane Cook well before it was cool to hate him, before he started counting Octobers, before he was famous, really. People used to try to tell me he was funny. Well, look what you've done. I hope you're happy with yourselves.
But I digress. There's a reason for us to be here (that's not as deep as it sounds). It seems to me that there are any number of things in life that you should know that no one is ever going to sit you down and teach you. For instance, no matter the situation, no matter where you are, you should always know where to find a bathroom. When you have to go, you don't want to be walking around like a lost child, begging strangers for directions. You want to stride confidently to your destination, do your business, and move on with your day.
Picture this: you're at a conference for whatever it is you do for a job, the CEO is droning on and on about graphs or mission statements or whatever, and you have to go. But you don't know where the bathroom is. So you try to quietly ask someone else, but several people are going to hear you and now people are staring at you, watching you leave the room. And if it's #2, you'll be gone for an appreciable amount of time and they'll all know.
Now, same scenario, only you know where the bathroom is: You leave, and return 10 minutes later, having happily dropped your deuce, with no one the wiser. And if anyone asks, you can just tell them you went for a smoke or to call your bookie or something cool.
Which guy do you want to be?
But I digress. There's a reason for us to be here (that's not as deep as it sounds). It seems to me that there are any number of things in life that you should know that no one is ever going to sit you down and teach you. For instance, no matter the situation, no matter where you are, you should always know where to find a bathroom. When you have to go, you don't want to be walking around like a lost child, begging strangers for directions. You want to stride confidently to your destination, do your business, and move on with your day.
Picture this: you're at a conference for whatever it is you do for a job, the CEO is droning on and on about graphs or mission statements or whatever, and you have to go. But you don't know where the bathroom is. So you try to quietly ask someone else, but several people are going to hear you and now people are staring at you, watching you leave the room. And if it's #2, you'll be gone for an appreciable amount of time and they'll all know.
Now, same scenario, only you know where the bathroom is: You leave, and return 10 minutes later, having happily dropped your deuce, with no one the wiser. And if anyone asks, you can just tell them you went for a smoke or to call your bookie or something cool.
Which guy do you want to be?
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