What Does TLC Stand for Again?

I admit, I have never really understood the appeal of “reality” television. These highly scripted skits have similar production value and believability of your high schooler’s production of “Avenue Q”. Yes, I did religiously watch the first seasons of Survivor and American Idol and when I am really desperate for entertainment late at night, you might catch me watching a random episode of Auction Hunters or Pawn Stars. And yes, I will be forced to check out Comic Book Men when it appears. But the moment the focus turns to Chumley’s latest scripted idiocy or contrived foul-up, I check out. At that point the very thin illusion of reality completely melts away and you are left watching regular old, really bad TV. If that is the case, why not watch the latest episode of Up All Night. At least it has a cute baby to distract you from the slowly encroaching darkness of death. Yet, even in the cesspool of reality TV, I think there is a special ring reserved for the shows that TLC puts on the air (and Lifetime, which is essentially the kid sitting at the next desk copying off TLC’s test). For some reason, this channel has decided that the best use of their broadcast time is to televise child abuse. No longer is it enough to sit back and laugh at the revolting actions of “adults” as they interact with other “adults”, TLC has decided to make stars out of people whose only defining characteristic is that they are evil to children. Whether it is by deciding they want to personify the baby-making machine of “A Brave New World” or borrowing all of their parenting techniques from the “How to Raise a Stripper” guidebook, the featured performers know that the secret to their success and fleeting fame is their irresponsible parenting and the more awful a parent they are, the more attention they get. And oh how they need that attention. Apparently though there is an audience for these things. I have heard all kinds of rationalizations for why people would want to revel in a child’s televised misery, but not one excuse has made any sense to me. Then again, I don’t understand the appeal of “reality” TV.

This blog post is sponsored by Dunder Mifflin.

The Worst Thing in the World Ever (or Maybe Just Right Now)

Speaking of the movie that I would give my Razzie vote to as worst movie of the year – Twilight : What To Expect When You Are Expecting Vampire Spawn Part 1…. What an awful, awful viewing experience.  I don’t think words can express how truly bad this movie was.  And really, I won’t try.  It is pointless at this point.  One thing the internet is not short on is Twilight take downs (One thing the internet is short on – more little kids getting hit in the head with oversized balls please).  It would be like staking Edward after Buffy and Abram Lincoln were already done with him.  So, instead of piling on with yet one more overwrought dissection of this cult phenomenon’s sexism, disturbing messages to teen-age girls, or undercover Mormon evangelism, let me instead just highlight the most memorable moment for me from this most recent episode of “As the Pampered Teen-Ager Pouts”.  And can there really be any argument about this.  Clearly the best part of this movie, ney, the whole series, is when the spurned werewolf of the central love triangle falls instantly in love with the less than 1 day old vampire progeny of the story’s protagonist upon locking eyes with it (By the way, the resolution of the love triangle in Stephanie Meyer’s other book “The Host” was equally creepy and off-putting).  Then, in the translating of bad book writing by poor screenwriting into dreadful cinema, the vampire boy narrates this perverse bond of man and child wife for the benefit of the audience (It is their most sacred law).   So, you don’t misunderstand there cosmic bond.  For more Twilight bashing, enjoy the below video. 

By the way, the remake of Arthur is actually pretty good.



Solitaire Update

So much for that upward climb I was crowing about last time.  I seem to have plateaued in my rapid ascension to solitaire royalty.  Of course, their might have been another reason for my continued improvement overtime besides the one I gave the last time.  And that is my addled, aged mind and its inability to keep track of how many games I have actually played at any given time.  I give it the old college try but many times I find myself asking, was that game four or five.  To my benefit, when I do question myself, I go with the higher number.  Darn you natural aging process.

There is one other variable in the ebbs and flows of my success and failure - the device and version of solitaire I play my games on.  I tend to play my games with either the default Microsoft Solitaire on my laptop or the game that is found on my Blackberry.  Originally, I had assumed these to versions of the game both simulated the randomness of a deck of cards.  But I am not so sure anymore.  It may just be me (and I am not willing to do the game tracking to figure this one out.  At least not yet.) but it seems like the Blackberry pays out fewer winners than the laptop one.  I don't think I ever came across a gutter ball (a hand that you can't make a single card play with) on the laptop but I know I have with the Blackberry.  It seems to me that the laptop always gives you a chance to win, you just have to make all of the right moves.  But the Blackberry simulates the truth of the cold, hard world.  Or it could just be my senior brain playing tricks on me again.

Day 35 – 0 of 9

Day 36 – 3 of 18 (3.75, 48.52)

Day 37 – 3 of 9 (200.5, 3.88, 50.51)

Day 38 – 1 of 9 (202.5, 3.75, 48.58)

Day 39 – 0 of 9 (203)

Day 40 – 2 of 5 (203, 3.5)

Day 41 – 2 of 8 (200.5)

Day 42 – 4 of 10 (200.5, 4, 52.16)

Day 43 – 1 of 5 (201.5, 4, 51.54)

Day 44 – 0 of 11 (201.5, 4, 51.34)

Day 45 – 1 of 5 (200.5)

Day 46 – 0 of 6 (201, 4.01, 50.41)

Day 47 – 2 of 10 (200.5, 4, 50.11)

Total - 72 of 432 (16.7%)

 

This blog post is sponsored by Knight Industries.

Big ... Meh

You would think that if a show you watched every episode of a television show over the course of five years, you might actually care.  But when it comes to "Big Love", the best I can do is a big shoulder shrug.  It was a soapy sudsy tail of family.  A psuedo-Morman, polygamous family but still if fashioned itself as a story of family.  Unfortunately, it was an extremely hatable, stunted family that was almost impossible to route for.  In fact, it was the kind of family that could only exist on television, regardless of marital status.  The middle wife of the group, Nicolette Grant, is shrewish individual that noone would stand to have as a college roommate let alone a life partner.  Yet, the horrendous, self-centered, navel-gazing characters were not the worst part of the show.  The writing was.

There so many nonsensical turns and unbelievable happenings on the show but instead of listing them all, let's just stick to escape from Mexico by dismemberment as the best of the worst.  Somehow a whole army of armed goons can't both shoot the people who just chopped up their prophet and make a phone call for an ambulance.  I guess crazy polygamous sects are multitaskers.  As bad as this was though, smaller but much more regular failures by the show runners were much more annoying.  The characters never grew during the entire five year period.  Despite everything that happened, they never changed.  Their character defects at the beginning of the show where the same at the end.  An episode would end with the wives reconciling, bonding, and vowing to be BBF's only to return to the exact same argument the very next episode.  Groundhog's day, everyday.

Well, it is over now.  Likely to quickly be forgotten and buried in the TV graveyard next to Evening Shade and Amen.  And how did it die.  Like it lived.  Illogical and irrational behavior on the part of the family members, the wives hurling insults at each other and doing things to deliberately get at each other, and a trying to hard to be shocking ending that somehow left the wives living happily ever after with no real income to speak of.   At least bug-eyes got to come back for a 5 second cameo before it ended.  And at least it wasn't the Lost finale.

This blog post is sponsored by Hendrickson's Home Plus.