Entries from September 2007 ↓

Why, oh why, do the new prime time game shows insist on doing this? I call it the Deal Or No Deal Curse, since I saw it with that show first and now I don't watch that show anymore.

What am I talking about? When the trailer for the episode tells you what's going to happen. Tonight, for instance, it told us, before the show ever started, that the contestant's boyfriend was going to propose, and that she was going to go on to win the most money of any contestant on the history of the show.

WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD YOU TELL US THAT? So now every song lyric she sings, instead of being in suspense if she got it right, we're bored because we know she did, up until the end. Instead of giving us a reason to watch, you give us a reason to fast forward. This absolutely killed Deal or No Deal for me, which was reduced to just random number picking. At least with Lyrics you get to hear some music. Outrageous.

On top of that, the buildup did not even suit the ending. Every commercial break (which, by the way, seemed to come more frequently as we approached the end) was filled with the same sort of suspenseful "Wait until you see how this ends!" nonsense. How did it end? With a whimper, not a bang, as she walked away with $350k, not even seeing the million dollar question. Who cares? A contestant won $350k last week. I was hoping this one would at least get to see the million dollar question.

The show could be dead to me now. It seems like they're going to do that every episode. In the preview for next week it was "This waitress whose fiance is serving overseas is trying to save up enough money for a wedding….until Wayne Brady gets a special call from a distant land that motivates her to go all the way…" I mean, COME ON! WHY ARE YOU DOING THAT?

3yr old, during her normal morning potty break, says to me, "Daddy? I love my sister whole big."

Awwwwwww.

It's actually become her catch phrase, she's saying it every day this week. "I whole big love you, Daddy!"

"I whole big love you too, sweetheart. Now go whole big love Mommy."

Then again, my 3yr old (both my girls, actually) can recite Shakespeare, too. I'm still trying to find a place to show off that trick, but none of the adults they come in contact with have any idea what they're talking about :).

After all the hype, Kid Nation has begun.  The premise, in case you missed it, is a tamed version of Lord of the Flies where they put a bunch of kids (I lost track of how many) in an isolated setting (a ghost town) and let them run it for themselves, with no adults.  Now, of course we know that there are adult cameramen and adult producers swarming around the place.  The point is that if the kids are about to do something stupid like screw up the spaghetti, they can't look at the nearest adult and say, "Help?"

So what did you think?  I found it hard to understand the kids, what with all the "like this and like that" and the general inability to properly pronounce most words.  Not to mention that everything is "awesome."  They fight like you'd expect, and the bigger kids (who are 15) pick on the smaller kids.  Funny moment of the show comes when they get a private camera on the older kid after a fight who says, in all seriousness, "I didn't get upset….you haven't seen me upset yet."  Dude, you're 15, nobody cares what you're like when you're upset.

They're trying to put some structure on it, with four teams divided up into things like running the store, handling the kitchen and so on.  Those tasks are divided up based on a challenge, which also dictates how much money the kids make.  That could be a problem since the losing team gets ten cents a day and the winning team gets a dollar.  That's quite a gap, especially if one team loses several challenges.

In general it wasn't painful to watch.  I'll watch it again, but I bet I won't stick through it to the end.

these buggy boards are normal in europe. but i doubt that it will fit with a stroller here. the stroller here doesn't have the attachment which you need to put a buggy board on. try a sit'n stand stroller!

Is it any wonder that Kim's red team is doing so horribly? For the second week in a row they don't just lose the weigh-in, they lose badly. Their best guy loses 6 pounds.

But really, is it a surprise after watching her training sessions? She's a whiner. Her best motivational tactic seems to be yelling at people "Quit, I don't care." Yeah, that'll work. One of her people (Amy) even walks out on her, and Bob has to talk her back into the gym.

I continue to be the most impressed with Bob. I think that Jillian's team works out of fear and respect, I think Kim's team is self-motivated (much like Kim herself, it seems). But I think that Bob's team is winning because they work to make their trainer proud of them, and earn all of those positive words he has for them. Thus far it seems to be working, as he "won" two weeks in a row, something that hadn't been done before. I say it like that because this week they added Jillian's black team, who had the best weight loss, but technically if it was a standard blue/red battle, Bob would have won his second week.

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_2512486.html?menu=news.quirkies

This story is so silly is seems like something out of Weekly World News.  A husband and wife are both engaging in online affairs, only to find out that they've been speaking with each other.  How romantic!  Just like that song that my wife likes!  Well, not so much.  They're getting divorced, each citing the other's infidelity.  Apparently they missed the point of the song.

She is in a coma and is unresponsative.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/09/17/flamingo.stuck.ap/index.html?eref=rss_us#

First of all, when you see the headline "Jack Hannah, Flamingo Trapped In Airport Turnstile" don't you immediately expect (nay, hope) to see video? 🙂

Second, you have to love this line from the article, which sounds like the start of its own "Guy walks into a bar" joke:  "Hannah was returning from a zoo fundraiser with a mongoose, a small leopard, and a flamingo."

Sounds like that joke from Breakfast Club ("A naked blond walks into a bar, with a poodle under one arm, and a two foot salami under the other. She lays the poodle on the table. Bartender says, "I suppose you won't be needing a drink." The naked lady says…")

PS – Since I've been asked, there is technically no known answer to the joke. The actor has said that he was making it up as he went. The original scene was supposed to have him tell a joke where the punchline was "Forgot my pencil" (the line he says as he walks back into the library after crashing through the ceiling), but no one could think of a joke with that punchline.

There are sites dedicated to coming up with a punchline for the joke, though. My favorite is this one:

Naked lady says, "Why do you say that?"

Bartender says, "I was talking to the poodle."

http://notorc.blogspot.com/2007/09/anatomy-of-humor-5-guy-walks-into-bar.html

Many many variations on the old start to a joke.  Many are stupid and forced, which disappointed me, although I did learn a couple of new ones.

They left out my favorite, though.

A mushroom walks into a bar and orders a drink.  Bartender says, "Get out of here, we don't serve mushrooms."

Mushroom says, "Aw come on, I'm a fungi!"

A friend's wife laughed at that joke, literally, for years.  She'd call up and leave messages on the answering machine with it.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/digital_memories

Story from Yahoo News about crazy people who try to document every millisecond of their child's life by taking thousands of digital photos, never deleting one, buying new memory cards as needed (apparently that guy doesn't believe in backing up or printing), and generally documenting every time your child cries (put down the camera, pick up the baby), makes a mess (if there's not a website dedicated to baby poop yet, I'd be surprised), and basically missing the point that in your rush to save the memories, you are putting yourself behind the camera and…wait for it….out of the picture.

I guarantee that all of them have one child.  Could somebody please run the followup story in 5-10 years when these people have a second child and they have to eventually have this conversation:

"Daddy, how come there's an entire bookcase of albums of pictures of Billy, but for me all you have is that one you keep in your wallet?"