Things I Am Excited About Right Now, TV Version

I didn't realize this was out already-- and just now, I've discovered that Season 3 is about to come out, too!

I am torn between so-excited-I-could-just-spit and dreading-the-inevitable-ruin-of-the-best-reality-show-ever over this. The bit about simplifying it has me quite worried. There's more than enough utterly insipid crap on TV, ABC!

And right now, I am watching the M*A*S*H series finale, which I have always wanted to see, but have never once caught on re-runs.

Interviewing Skillz

I don't often watch TV in the mornings. I may have mentioned this before, but I am really not a morning person. I prefer to stay under the nice warm covers as long as possible. In fact, there are times when I stay under the covers longer than is really advisable, since I am a lily-livered fool who finds it difficult to appreciate the action-consequence connection before coffee and at least a half hour of being both conscious and upright simultaneously. But springtime is unpredictable, weatherwise, in this neck of the woods, so I find that, even if I checked the weather the day before, it's often advisable to flip on the Weather Channel and wait for the Local on the 8s to come along.

As it happens, the next channel up from the Weather Channel rebroadcasts the local morning news, and the next channel up from that is CNN. So, some mornings, when I'm waiting for the weather to come along, I flip between these three channels, watching a few minutes of this, a few seconds of that, until I find out what direction my wardrobe should go. So this morning, I witnessed this little gem of a human interest-y story, about a baker somewhere-- California? Oregon? I missed the introduction to the story, so I'm not sure-- who has decided to try and grow his own wheat in an effort to cut his costs, in light of the rapid rise in flour prices over the past year.

At the moment that I joined the story, the interviewer asked the baker what the tipping point was for him, what made him decide to do this. The baker said something to the effect of Well, the price we've paid for flour has increase threefold over the past year-- TRIPLED!-- and we'd been talking about this for a while anyway. As you know, we're an organic bakery... hard to find the flour to begin with... etc, etc. Seems like a possible solution, and we're very attracted to the community aspect of the project, too. (Apparently some of their customers/ friends/ neighbors are going to help by planting some plots of wheat on their own land, which is kind of cool.) The interviewer was kind of going "uh huh, uh huh" while he was talking, and when he came to the end of his thought, she kind of looked down at her desk, as though she'd gotten caught not paying attention in class and was hoping to find the answer to the question the professor just asked magically written there...

and said "So, your costs doubled, then?"

The baker fixed her with a beady eye and said "No. They tripled." He didn't actually say "Jackass", but the tone of his voice definitely implied it.

Hopefully Spitzer Won't Follow In His Footsteps

This past week's episode of This American Life, called "Leaving the Fold". The main story in the episode was about Jerry Springer. Yes, that Jerry Springer. It told the story of how he became a politician, paid for a hooker with a personal check, then went on to become a very popular mayor, moved on to become an even more popular anchor on the local news, and then morphed into the Jerry Springer show.

I think part of the reason why I liked this episode so much was that it proved to me that I'm not crazy. Or at least, anyway, my memories of Jerry Springer aren't all in my head. See, I grew up watching his nightly commentary on TV, and I distinctly remember when he started his talk show. It was very exciting to me, and I remember commenting to my friends that it was nice to see a talk show that was at a little more intellectual level than most of what was on network TV. I'm not sure when the words "intellectual" and "Jerry Springer Show" became polar opposites, exactly. I worked full time during the day, so I didn't get to see the show very often. In my mind, therefore, the change was overnight. I agreed with the sentiment expressed during the piece that this change is somewhat mystifying to those who "knew him when". Who is this guy, and what did he do with the real Jerry Springer?

The end of the segment was most interesting, and kind of sad at the same time. It detailed Jerry Springer's interest in getting back into politics. There were clips from a speech he gave that allowed you a glimpse into what is surely an intelligent and passionate mind, but contrasted sharply with his apparent unwillingness to sever ties with the otherwise insurmountable obstacle blocking his path to a return to the political sphere... makes him seem vaguely like a tragic figure, you know? And it makes me angry, perhaps unfairly or even unjustifiably, that this man who clearly knows better, is exploiting the very people he claims to want to help, and helping to fill our culture with so much ugliness, for the sake of the almighty dollar. What mighty things could he have accomplished if he had decided to turn his talents and energy toward something positive? What if he had built an empire based on finding the beauty and dignity in the world, instead of glorifying the basest and most degrading things he could find?

Please Explain Something to Me

Who the heck are the Kardashians and why does America want to keep up with them so very badly?

Pass the Brain Bleach

If I never hear one of the Chipmunks say "Bow chica bow wow" in his squeaky little Chipmunk voice again, it will be too soon.

Baby Einstein Is Destroying Democracy

At least according to this NPR commentator. You know, I agree with the individual points of her premise: Baby Einstein is overrated and George Bush's Iraq plan sucks. But then she loses me with the whole "Baby Einstein and its ilk are causing us to raise a generation of kids who will be unable to fulfill their duties as citizens of our "democracy" (I put that in quotes so that I won't set Ash off on a rant about how we don't live in a democracy, we live in a republic.). Seems a far bit of a stretch to me.

Geography 101

Watching the Weather Channel this morning, waiting for Local on the 8s so that I could decide what to wear, I wasn’t paying much attention to the inane patter between the anchors until the ditzy looking blonde announced “Oslo is a great country, but I’ve been to Helsinki and I think it’s even better there.”

Oh, dear Lord. You should have seen the look on her co-anchor’s face.

Senate Follies

The Scalito confirmation hearings are on the television in the student lounge right now and the honorable Senator Joseph Biden just whipped out a baseball cap with the Princeton logo on it, put it on, and has spent the last thirty or so seconds adjusting it, bending the brim in. Now, it's noisy enough that I can't actually hear the sound, so I have no idea why he's doing this. It may be making some incredibly brilliant point that will strike fear into the hearts of conservatives everywhere, but from where I'm sitting, it looks... silly.

And the nominee's suit looks just a little too big for him from this camera angle.

I want to want to watch these hearings. But in reality, they're simply too painful to listen to for very long. Mostly it strikes me as a parade of overpaid old boys who are using their time at the mike to blather on about whatever issue they think is going to play well on the local news back in their states, even if it seems to my admittedly uninformed ears as though it's utterly irrelevant to Alito's fitness for the Supreme Court.

I think it would suck royally to be one of the people standing around in the background. Yeah, at first, it would be pretty cool, being a witness to history and all that jazz. But I imagine standing still for hours on end, trying to look interested, yet composed would get old very quickly. I would spend the entire time feeling imaginary itches, then wondering if I'll be in the background on C-Span at the exact moment that I chose to adjust the underwire poking me uncomfortably in the ribs, then trying to stifle a yawn, then realizing that I've been woolgathering for several minutes and feverishly hoping that I wasn't just on C-Span in the background, slack-jawed and with glazed eyes.

I know that some image consultant somewhere probably told them to do so, but the men look ridiculously uniformed in blue suits, white shirts, and either a blue or a red tie. It endears Arlen Specter to me just a little that he's wearing a brown suit and a green tie, even though they don't really match, just because it's different. Plus, the tie is a great shade of green.

I wonder what Mrs. Alito is thinking right now. She's obviously not really paying attention to what's being said at this exact moment (she's got the glazed eyes going on). She's also breathing very heavily. Whoops, she just "woke up"-- you could see her eyes suddenly snap to focus and she swallowed very hard.

I also love it when the Senators make a big deal out of yielding their time. "And now these meetings will end 4 minutes earlier than they otherwise would have." Bonus points when they repeat similar sentiments several times, significantly reducing the number of minutes yielded back while at the same time contributing nothing more to the substance of the hearings.

Was that supposed to be a trick question? "Let's see... Do you remember which Supreme Court justice wrote the opinion in Roe v. Wade?" You could practically see Alito's inner eye roll.

Disturbing Commercials, Part 1

Why would a mini-van type car be targeted at ricers? The car goes through a series of conversions involving tiny tires and odd colored flames at an incredibly fast pace, making it look like the car is exploding and imploding. I have no idea what car is is supposed to be because they never actually tell you. What a strange commercial.