RANDOM THOUGHTS:
The following were on my mind between Tuesday, May 24th and Tuesday, May 31st:
-Congratulations to Non-Threatening White Guy for winning "American Idol" four years in a row!
- Whatever happened to smart, well-thought-out commercials? These days its all style over substance, with lazy writing and ad firms hiring C-lists TV actors to say cliched sentences for 30 seconds straight. Come on, guys! You can do better.
1800 Tequila: Change the Game.
- Nedna: __Yes? __No? __Shameless online exploit to bring back fan interest in a show that hasn't been great for years?
- I wonder if D.H. Lawrence, the author of "Lady Chatterley's Lover," is still proud of writing that 1928 book knowing that it has left behind a legacy of a movie and three spin-offs of the movie that Cinemax has used and exploited during late-nights whenever they felt to not show re-runs of "Co-Ed Confidential" and "Life on Top."
- The worst part of the Chicago Bulls losing to the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals? Bulls fans won't be able to see how Chicago can respond to this series loss until January 2013 when the NBA lockout finally comes to a close.
- With three of my favorite shows on the planet ("Breaking Bad," "Curb Your Enthusiasm," "Louie") set to kick off their new seasons as early as late June, AV Club reviewing classic episodes of "The Simpsons," "Arrested Develpoment," "The Sopranos," and "The Office: UK" (among others) and Alan Sepinwall set to review the entire first season of "Deadwood," it appears that this summer will once again have me spending the majority of my time on the tube, just like with the other three seasons.
-It's been too long since I shared by last TV Top Ten on this blog (March 7th, to be exact), so I figure that now (with the 2010-2011 primetime network TV season wrapping up Wednesday) would probably be the best time to do so. So, after a much lengthy delay, here is my list for my ten or so favorite to watch TV shows from the past three months:
10 (tie). "The Simpsons"* (still #10)
10 (tie). "30 Rock" (down from #6, position previously held by "The Colbert Report")
10 (tie). "Sports Show with Norm MacDonald"
9. "South Park" (position previously held by "American Dad")
8. "The Chicago Code" (still at #8)
7. "Fringe" (down from #4, position previously held by "Lights Out")
6. "The Office" (down from #5, position previously held by "30 Rock")
5. "Treme" (position previously held by "The Office")
4. "Game of Thrones" (position previously held by "Fringe")
3. "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" (still #3)
2. "Community" (still #2)
1. "Parks and Recreations" (still #1)
Up from Last List (March 2011): "Sports Show with Norm MacDonald," "Game of Thrones," "Treme," "South Park."
Down from Last List (March 2011): "The Office," "30 Rock," "Lights Out," "Fringe," "The Colbert Report," "American Dad."
New From Last List (March 2011): "South Park," "Game of Thrones," "Treme," "Sports Show with Norm MacDonald"
Just Barely Missed List: "Chuck," "American Dad," "The Colbert Report," "Bob's Burgers," "Modern Family," "Lights Out."
Other Thoughts:
a. There was once a time when I would have definitely included season one of "The Killing" onto my list of the TV top ten. Alas, that time has came and went (more on this in a later post).
b. Obviously, the two shows that saw it biggest drop was the veteran comedy "30 Rock." The reason I decided to make the drop was simple: while the season has been pretty good overall (probably the best since season 2), the last six or so episodes of the season were probably the show's weakest, with episodes like "100" and "Respawn" that were both underwhelming in itself while also showing some of the comedy's weaker qualities.
c. The * under "The Simpsons" was just another way of me basically saying how this show is on the list mostly as a token of respect for its days of yore, and not because it had a good string of episodes these past three months (although season 21 was probably one of their better seasons in a while). However, I am considering perhaps dropping this beginning in the fall, since their automatic spot has left out some pretty worthy shows from time to time. Stay tuned.
d. My reason for including "Sports Show," a program that I've never mentioned on this site until now: in terms of generating pure laughs (shows that make me chuckle on a weekly basis) this is right up there with all of the great on the air today. I love the show's first joke-filled ten minutes, "Garbage Time," and Norm MacDonald's go-for-broke style. Hopefully, Comedy Central can look past their below average ratings and instead renew it. That way, I continue to get my weekly dose of MacDonald goodness.
e. So long, "The Chicago Code": a very promising cop drama that was cut from the airwaves too short earlier this month (and considering how its final episode had better ratings than renewed shows like "Chuck" and "Fringe," I'd say the move by FOX get more disappointing every day). At least your memory will forever live on here on The mj15 Blog.
f. I was originally thinking on perhaps dropping "Treme" from the rankings in favor of shows like "Bob's Burgers," that were good and which wrapped their season during this three-month span ("Treme" is supposed to air another five episodes at this point), but then I'd realized how good the second season of the David Simon series started off, and that little idea was soon terminated.
g. Shows that didn't air these past three months that you should expect to see next time around (most likely sometime in late August): "Breaking Bad," "Louie," "Futurama," "Wilfred," "Curb Your Enthusiasm."
h. With "Parks and Recreations" and "Community" finished, it should be interesting to see who will gain the #1 spot over the summertime. The smart move would be to predict "The Daily Show" as the new upcoming #1, since it's the 1st show ranked behind those two. However, there are three really good shows that are set to premiere in the summer: "Breaking Bad" (coming off a season many considered to be one of the best in TV history), "Louie" (the comedy from Louis C.K. that had a brilliant first season last year), and "Curb Your Enthusiasm" (always consistent in quality). Also, there's a small chance that "Game of Thrones" will have three very terrific final three episodes in their stellar first season, so that show just might sneak up to that spot as well. Either way, can't wait to see what cable TV brings us during the summertime.
Hope to see back here next Monday for another, brand new installment of "Random Thoughts." Otherwise, see you when I post May's "End of the Month"!
Sincerely,
Your pal: mj15
If you have any opinions on today's post, or if you just have any suggestions or
tips for my next blog entry, e-mail me at: mj1599@aol.com. Your e-mails are greatly appreciated.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Saturday, May 28, 2011
End of the Week: 05/22/11- 05/28/11
END OF THE WEEK:
I hope that you're enjoying the start to your Memorial Day weekend. Now, let's get this show started. Once again, here are my picks for some of the week's best and/or most memorable people and moments, better known in this blog simply as "End of the Week":
Commencement Speech of the Week: Amy Poehler at Harvard University
With the end of the year comes a new slate of famous celebrities being offered honorary degrees at certain colleges for the whole purpose of showing up and making a speech so the graduates can brag that [insert celebrity name here] was standing 30 feet away and talking directly to them about stuff like carpe diem, shaping the world, and whatever other bullsh*t. This year, these celebrities ranged from politicians like Bill Clinton at NYU to writers like Tony Morrison at Rutgers to Hollywood stars like Tom Hanks at Yale or Denzel Washington at Penn. To me, the one commencement speech that stood out the most came from this year's Harvard College Class Day, where "Parks and Recreations" star and Boston College graduate Amy Poehler to the class of 2011. It was funny, it was clever, and it made up for the large dose of arrogant douchebags present at the ceremony. Also, because "Parks and Recreations" isn't coming back on TV until around September 20th or so, which makes any sighting of the cast members or Michael Shur great at this point.
Stories of the Week:
- The Actual Story of the Week: Tornado Rampages Over the City of Joplin, Missouri; At Least 142 People Are Dead
With this tornado, 2011 now marks the deadliest year for tornadoes since 1953 with 523 people tragically passing away from this natural disaster. Another sad, somber reminder of just how deadly Mother Nature can be. May they all R.I.P.
- The Tiger Woods Saga of '09 Memorial Story of the Week: North Virginia Woman Claims To Regularly Get in Bed With the Ghost of Jim Morrison
There's a very good chance that the woman wasn't "lying in bed" with Morrison. However, at least she was lying about something, which was this story.
Chokers of the Week: The Chicago Bulls (in a slight edge over the Oklahoma City Thunder)
The team's Thursday night meltdown in game five of the Eastern Conference Finals, one which cost them the series, was simply a disaster of Homeric proportions, one the showed all of the inexperience, all of the inadequacies and their ineffectiveness closing out games all in one single little space. With 3:30 remaining in the game, the Bulls had a 12 point lead over the Heat, and from that period in time it looked as if a win was inevitable, that the team had done enough in the game's first 44:30 to stay alive and take this series to Miami for a game six. But, then, this happened (game log courtesy of Deadspin):
02:40 Rose Turnover : Bad Pass (3 TO) Steal:Wade (2 ST) [CHI 77-67]
02:36 Wade Layup Shot: Made (17 PTS); Rose Foul : Shooting (4 PF) [CHI 77-69]
01:30 Wade 3pt Shot: Made (20 PTS) Assist: James (6 AST); Rose Foul : Shooting (5 PF) [CHI 79-75]
01:08 Rose Floating Jump shot: Missed [CHI 79-76]
00:52.9 Rose Turnover : Bad Pass (4 TO) Steal:James (3 ST) [79-79]
00:26.7 Rose Free Throw 2 of 2 Missed [MIA 81-80]
00:00.7 Rose 3pt Shot: Missed Block: James (2 BLK) [MIA 83-80]
And just like that, the game ended in a complete 180 reverse of how it was supposed to go down. Miami won by 3, defeating Chicago in five games and earning a spot in the NBA finals against the Dallas Mavericks, while Chicago (both its players and its fan) ended the game in a state of chock, trying to comprehend how this team (who won 62 games in the regular season) could possibly play as bad as they did: poorly guarding James and Wade, making dumb fouls when they shouldn't have, missing important free throws, and overall closing out the game like the Oklahoma City Thunder in game 4 of the Western Conference Finals. I suppose if there's anything that I must do in this situation, it would be to give the credit to where credit is mostly due: Miami's Big Three, particularly Lebron James who made two of the game's biggest shots at the end (including the one that gave Miami the lead) while also once again brilliantly guarding MVP Derrick Rose (his final FG percentage while being guarded by James? 6.3 %).
Also, the Bulls (like the Thunder) are an inexperienced team, one whose best player is 22 years old and who haven't made this far into a season since Michael Jordan, so the fact that they were schooled at the final moments of this game (along with games 3 and 4) by a more mature and more experienced Heat team is not at all surprising. Now, I guess there's nothing left to do but to wait out and see how the team responds to this crushing defeat next season. They're still a fairly young team that is one big trade or signing (Dwight Howard, anyone?) away from being the best team in the league, so I will predict that there future will turn out to be like the ones for the late '80s Bulls in the NBA, or the 2008-2009 Chicago Blackhawks (to use another Chicago sports team comparison) in the NHL. Stilll...considering how they had the MVP and the Coach of the Year on their side, this loss was still pretty messed up in retrospect.
Video of the Week: "The Grand Rapids LipDub"
This video from the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan came as a response to an article posted on Newsweek claiming it to be one of the nation's top dying cities in order to show that it was not, in fact, doing so. This, my friends, is the epitome of a well-choreographed f-you.
Person of the Week: Comedian Eugene Mirman
for being one of the few celebrities out here in the U.S. to actually do something that I've always wanted to do, which in this case was spending money that he made working on a TV show for a large ad on a few major New York publications ranting against some company that you really hate (don't you question my fantasies!). On Thursday, the very funny comedian decided to spend some of the extra money he made while voice acting on "Bob's Burgers" on something both peculiar and epic: an angry and sarcastic full-age letter on both the New York Press and the Greenpoint Gazette ranting against the much maligned cable giant Time-Warner, a company that is not new to criticism already. According to his own website, Mirman's decision to pay to run this ad came after Time-Warner failed to show up twice to move his cable. Mirman is a comedian pretty well known for making some very humorous letters in the past, like his one to Delta Airlines or his one to some random rock music group on MySpace from his appearance on the "Comedians of Comedy" stand-up special, but this one will most certainly will surpass them as the most memorable.
The open-letter was fairly brief (only four paragraphs, with two P.S.'s at the end) but right down to the point, which was to say that Time-Warner sucks. It such so much, in fact, that it has less stars on Yelp (1.5) than serial killer Jefferey Dahmer (if he was actually on Yelp, of course) and that he wishes for them the following plagues by God:
"1. Awkward. Every board member’s cell phone ring loudly announces their weight and also the day they’ll die.
2. Bathroom. The constant feeling that you have to go number two, but completely forgetting how.
3. Improv. Your first-born will want to be a short form improviser.
4. Popcorn. Your second born will smell like hot buttered popcorn. It’s not that bad at first, but eventually I bet it will be maddening."
Now, while I don't necessarily share Mirman's pain with Time-Warner, there have been certain cases where I have hated a certain company, a certain store, a certain restaurant, etc.so much that I just wanted to do something exactly like this (namely my former cable company Comcast, better known as the Time-Warner of the Chicagoland area and K-Mart, to name a few). For this, I congratulate Mirman. Also, because this rant came as an advertisement and not as, say, a blog post, it was able to have such an impact that the Jeff Simmermon, the Director of Digital Communications at Time-Warner, personally wrote a response of his own at the company's website to address this issue and say how the company is working hard to improve itself everyday with a five-step plan. Whether this five-step plan will work, or if Time-Warner will actually go ahead and continue on with this plan beyond Memorial Day, remains to be seen, but at least it was a sign of how awesome this letter was.
And that's the way it was! Enjoy the rest of your extended weekend, everyone!
Sincerely,
Your pal: mj15
If you have any opinions on today's post, or if you just have any suggestions or
tips for my next blog entry, e-mail me at: mj1599@aol.com. Your e-mails are greatly appreciated.
I hope that you're enjoying the start to your Memorial Day weekend. Now, let's get this show started. Once again, here are my picks for some of the week's best and/or most memorable people and moments, better known in this blog simply as "End of the Week":
Commencement Speech of the Week: Amy Poehler at Harvard University
With the end of the year comes a new slate of famous celebrities being offered honorary degrees at certain colleges for the whole purpose of showing up and making a speech so the graduates can brag that [insert celebrity name here] was standing 30 feet away and talking directly to them about stuff like carpe diem, shaping the world, and whatever other bullsh*t. This year, these celebrities ranged from politicians like Bill Clinton at NYU to writers like Tony Morrison at Rutgers to Hollywood stars like Tom Hanks at Yale or Denzel Washington at Penn. To me, the one commencement speech that stood out the most came from this year's Harvard College Class Day, where "Parks and Recreations" star and Boston College graduate Amy Poehler to the class of 2011. It was funny, it was clever, and it made up for the large dose of arrogant douchebags present at the ceremony. Also, because "Parks and Recreations" isn't coming back on TV until around September 20th or so, which makes any sighting of the cast members or Michael Shur great at this point.
Stories of the Week:
- The Actual Story of the Week: Tornado Rampages Over the City of Joplin, Missouri; At Least 142 People Are Dead
With this tornado, 2011 now marks the deadliest year for tornadoes since 1953 with 523 people tragically passing away from this natural disaster. Another sad, somber reminder of just how deadly Mother Nature can be. May they all R.I.P.
- The Tiger Woods Saga of '09 Memorial Story of the Week: North Virginia Woman Claims To Regularly Get in Bed With the Ghost of Jim Morrison
There's a very good chance that the woman wasn't "lying in bed" with Morrison. However, at least she was lying about something, which was this story.
Chokers of the Week: The Chicago Bulls (in a slight edge over the Oklahoma City Thunder)
The team's Thursday night meltdown in game five of the Eastern Conference Finals, one which cost them the series, was simply a disaster of Homeric proportions, one the showed all of the inexperience, all of the inadequacies and their ineffectiveness closing out games all in one single little space. With 3:30 remaining in the game, the Bulls had a 12 point lead over the Heat, and from that period in time it looked as if a win was inevitable, that the team had done enough in the game's first 44:30 to stay alive and take this series to Miami for a game six. But, then, this happened (game log courtesy of Deadspin):
02:40 Rose Turnover : Bad Pass (3 TO) Steal:Wade (2 ST) [CHI 77-67]
02:36 Wade Layup Shot: Made (17 PTS); Rose Foul : Shooting (4 PF) [CHI 77-69]
01:30 Wade 3pt Shot: Made (20 PTS) Assist: James (6 AST); Rose Foul : Shooting (5 PF) [CHI 79-75]
01:08 Rose Floating Jump shot: Missed [CHI 79-76]
00:52.9 Rose Turnover : Bad Pass (4 TO) Steal:James (3 ST) [79-79]
00:26.7 Rose Free Throw 2 of 2 Missed [MIA 81-80]
00:00.7 Rose 3pt Shot: Missed Block: James (2 BLK) [MIA 83-80]
And just like that, the game ended in a complete 180 reverse of how it was supposed to go down. Miami won by 3, defeating Chicago in five games and earning a spot in the NBA finals against the Dallas Mavericks, while Chicago (both its players and its fan) ended the game in a state of chock, trying to comprehend how this team (who won 62 games in the regular season) could possibly play as bad as they did: poorly guarding James and Wade, making dumb fouls when they shouldn't have, missing important free throws, and overall closing out the game like the Oklahoma City Thunder in game 4 of the Western Conference Finals. I suppose if there's anything that I must do in this situation, it would be to give the credit to where credit is mostly due: Miami's Big Three, particularly Lebron James who made two of the game's biggest shots at the end (including the one that gave Miami the lead) while also once again brilliantly guarding MVP Derrick Rose (his final FG percentage while being guarded by James? 6.3 %).
Also, the Bulls (like the Thunder) are an inexperienced team, one whose best player is 22 years old and who haven't made this far into a season since Michael Jordan, so the fact that they were schooled at the final moments of this game (along with games 3 and 4) by a more mature and more experienced Heat team is not at all surprising. Now, I guess there's nothing left to do but to wait out and see how the team responds to this crushing defeat next season. They're still a fairly young team that is one big trade or signing (Dwight Howard, anyone?) away from being the best team in the league, so I will predict that there future will turn out to be like the ones for the late '80s Bulls in the NBA, or the 2008-2009 Chicago Blackhawks (to use another Chicago sports team comparison) in the NHL. Stilll...considering how they had the MVP and the Coach of the Year on their side, this loss was still pretty messed up in retrospect.
Video of the Week: "The Grand Rapids LipDub"
This video from the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan came as a response to an article posted on Newsweek claiming it to be one of the nation's top dying cities in order to show that it was not, in fact, doing so. This, my friends, is the epitome of a well-choreographed f-you.
Person of the Week: Comedian Eugene Mirman
for being one of the few celebrities out here in the U.S. to actually do something that I've always wanted to do, which in this case was spending money that he made working on a TV show for a large ad on a few major New York publications ranting against some company that you really hate (don't you question my fantasies!). On Thursday, the very funny comedian decided to spend some of the extra money he made while voice acting on "Bob's Burgers" on something both peculiar and epic: an angry and sarcastic full-age letter on both the New York Press and the Greenpoint Gazette ranting against the much maligned cable giant Time-Warner, a company that is not new to criticism already. According to his own website, Mirman's decision to pay to run this ad came after Time-Warner failed to show up twice to move his cable. Mirman is a comedian pretty well known for making some very humorous letters in the past, like his one to Delta Airlines or his one to some random rock music group on MySpace from his appearance on the "Comedians of Comedy" stand-up special, but this one will most certainly will surpass them as the most memorable.
The open-letter was fairly brief (only four paragraphs, with two P.S.'s at the end) but right down to the point, which was to say that Time-Warner sucks. It such so much, in fact, that it has less stars on Yelp (1.5) than serial killer Jefferey Dahmer (if he was actually on Yelp, of course) and that he wishes for them the following plagues by God:
"1. Awkward. Every board member’s cell phone ring loudly announces their weight and also the day they’ll die.
2. Bathroom. The constant feeling that you have to go number two, but completely forgetting how.
3. Improv. Your first-born will want to be a short form improviser.
4. Popcorn. Your second born will smell like hot buttered popcorn. It’s not that bad at first, but eventually I bet it will be maddening."
Now, while I don't necessarily share Mirman's pain with Time-Warner, there have been certain cases where I have hated a certain company, a certain store, a certain restaurant, etc.so much that I just wanted to do something exactly like this (namely my former cable company Comcast, better known as the Time-Warner of the Chicagoland area and K-Mart, to name a few). For this, I congratulate Mirman. Also, because this rant came as an advertisement and not as, say, a blog post, it was able to have such an impact that the Jeff Simmermon, the Director of Digital Communications at Time-Warner, personally wrote a response of his own at the company's website to address this issue and say how the company is working hard to improve itself everyday with a five-step plan. Whether this five-step plan will work, or if Time-Warner will actually go ahead and continue on with this plan beyond Memorial Day, remains to be seen, but at least it was a sign of how awesome this letter was.
And that's the way it was! Enjoy the rest of your extended weekend, everyone!
Sincerely,
Your pal: mj15
If you have any opinions on today's post, or if you just have any suggestions or
tips for my next blog entry, e-mail me at: mj1599@aol.com. Your e-mails are greatly appreciated.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Random Thoughts: 05/16/11- 05/24/11
RANDOM THOUGHTS:
The following were on my mind between Monday, May 16th and Tuesday, May 24th (not Monday, May 23rd, because of the newest installment of "End of the Week" being pushed back for another two whole days):
- I think its safe to say that the HBO GO is easily one of the the top new entertainment and technological products to be released this year. Its like NetFlix for those people who have HBO but are still cheap enough to not pay an extra $10 a month to pay for a subscription to the former (ahem).
- If the original purpose of car horns were to simply warn people of incoming danger, then I think its safe to say that it was a poor thought out one, considering what it has morphed into.
- I wonder what genius advertisement executive came up to the folks at ESPN and said "You know what we should do to promote every NBA playoff game? Let's have commercials with talking basketballs!" Also, I wonder how long it took for those ESPN personnel to allow those commercials to happen realize what a horrible mistake they made.
- Anyone who feels that breastfeeding their child over the age of two need to watch the past two episodes of "Game of Thrones" (which, by the way, is officially my new favorite TV show to come out this '10-'11 season, surpassing fellow HBO drama "Boardwalk Empire"), especially whenever the crazy looking son of Catelyn's sister (who I think is around nine) says "Make the tiny man fly!" Truly disturbing stuff.
- Yellow dinosaur fighting pedophiles? Yellow dinosaur fighting pedophiles. One of the best videos of the year? One of the best videos of the year. Tired out Internet meme? Tired out Internet meme.
- Even though the power rankings ended a week ago, I still feel like I should write a few thoughts on the 1 hour season finales of "The Office" and "Parks and Recreations," so here it goes. Overall, I actually enjoyed both of them (especially the wonderful "P&R," who have officially wrapped up season 3 with another great slate of episodes, particularly "Lil' Sebastian," making them a perfect 16 for 16 in quality for 2011). However, I do have a few criticisms towards "The Office." For starters, why did they feel the need to wait until the fall to reveal who the new boss was? Many fans of the show were going to find out who the boss would be anyway during the summer through the Internet rumor mill, and I still feel that it would have been a better way to end the show than with ten minutes that were basically included to stall the rest of the episode. Second, the dumbing down of both Kevin and Darryl were stunning. So, what, Kevin is actually supposed to be a retard now that he can't say the alphabet properly? In that case, what the whole point of the "Holly mistakes Kevin for a retard" story in early season 5? Also, I was under the assumption that the show made out Darryl to be one of the smartest people in Dundler-Mifflin, and now he's so clueless that he doesn't even know that he needed a resume for the job? Oh well, anything for a laugh, I guess.
Oh, well, at least the second half of season 7 proved to be an improvement over the first half, and the entire season 6 for that matter. Can't wait to see "Parks and Recreations" return in the fall for season four and can't wait to see how the post-Steve Carell 'Office' experiment plays out (F.Y.I., I think either Jim, Andy and Catherine Tate's character is going to be the boss).
Programming note: Because next Monday is Memorial Day, I've decided to post the next weekly installment of "Random Thoughts" until next Tuesday. Until then, enjoy what I hope will be a pleasant workweek!
Sincerely,
Your pal: mj15
If you have any opinions on today's post, or if you just have any suggestions or
tips for my next blog entry, e-mail me at: mj1599@aol.com. Your e-mails are greatly appreciated.
The following were on my mind between Monday, May 16th and Tuesday, May 24th (not Monday, May 23rd, because of the newest installment of "End of the Week" being pushed back for another two whole days):
- I think its safe to say that the HBO GO is easily one of the the top new entertainment and technological products to be released this year. Its like NetFlix for those people who have HBO but are still cheap enough to not pay an extra $10 a month to pay for a subscription to the former (ahem).
- If the original purpose of car horns were to simply warn people of incoming danger, then I think its safe to say that it was a poor thought out one, considering what it has morphed into.
- I wonder what genius advertisement executive came up to the folks at ESPN and said "You know what we should do to promote every NBA playoff game? Let's have commercials with talking basketballs!" Also, I wonder how long it took for those ESPN personnel to allow those commercials to happen realize what a horrible mistake they made.
- Anyone who feels that breastfeeding their child over the age of two need to watch the past two episodes of "Game of Thrones" (which, by the way, is officially my new favorite TV show to come out this '10-'11 season, surpassing fellow HBO drama "Boardwalk Empire"), especially whenever the crazy looking son of Catelyn's sister (who I think is around nine) says "Make the tiny man fly!" Truly disturbing stuff.
- Yellow dinosaur fighting pedophiles? Yellow dinosaur fighting pedophiles. One of the best videos of the year? One of the best videos of the year. Tired out Internet meme? Tired out Internet meme.
YELLOW DINO: PEDO HUNTER from Everything Is Terrible! on Vimeo.
- Even though the power rankings ended a week ago, I still feel like I should write a few thoughts on the 1 hour season finales of "The Office" and "Parks and Recreations," so here it goes. Overall, I actually enjoyed both of them (especially the wonderful "P&R," who have officially wrapped up season 3 with another great slate of episodes, particularly "Lil' Sebastian," making them a perfect 16 for 16 in quality for 2011). However, I do have a few criticisms towards "The Office." For starters, why did they feel the need to wait until the fall to reveal who the new boss was? Many fans of the show were going to find out who the boss would be anyway during the summer through the Internet rumor mill, and I still feel that it would have been a better way to end the show than with ten minutes that were basically included to stall the rest of the episode. Second, the dumbing down of both Kevin and Darryl were stunning. So, what, Kevin is actually supposed to be a retard now that he can't say the alphabet properly? In that case, what the whole point of the "Holly mistakes Kevin for a retard" story in early season 5? Also, I was under the assumption that the show made out Darryl to be one of the smartest people in Dundler-Mifflin, and now he's so clueless that he doesn't even know that he needed a resume for the job? Oh well, anything for a laugh, I guess.
Oh, well, at least the second half of season 7 proved to be an improvement over the first half, and the entire season 6 for that matter. Can't wait to see "Parks and Recreations" return in the fall for season four and can't wait to see how the post-Steve Carell 'Office' experiment plays out (F.Y.I., I think either Jim, Andy and Catherine Tate's character is going to be the boss).
Programming note: Because next Monday is Memorial Day, I've decided to post the next weekly installment of "Random Thoughts" until next Tuesday. Until then, enjoy what I hope will be a pleasant workweek!
Sincerely,
Your pal: mj15
If you have any opinions on today's post, or if you just have any suggestions or
tips for my next blog entry, e-mail me at: mj1599@aol.com. Your e-mails are greatly appreciated.
Monday, May 23, 2011
End of the Week: 05/15/11- 05/21/11
END OF THE WEEK:
Well, no Rapture on Saturday after all, to the dismay of 89 year old Harold Camping and the rest of his Family Radio followers and believers (although they now believe that the day of Judgment is now October 21st). In a way, I'm kind of sad. Yes, I knew that Judgment Day was never going to happen at 6 p.m. last night, and that an earthquake would strike the Earth, leading into six months of famine, destruction and death. And, yes, I know that everyone who believed that the Rapture would happen that day are gullible idiots who deserve the repercussions (but not our pity) for believing a false prophet who had failed in his end of days prediction 17 years ago and apparently never put Matthew 24:36-51 into his "equation." But then again...how awesome would it have been to see Judgment Day and the second coming of Christ happen, to actually see something happen that Christians for the past 1900 years always believed would happen but never were able to see it for themselves (well, the people who experienced the Bubonic Plague might have gotten a taste) and has sparked imagination from people for years and have been the inspiration for many great works of art, from Mozart's "Requiem" to the movie "Dr. Strangelove? After all, wouldn't you like to go up to Heaven, have someone who probably died from some heart attack or auto-erotic asphyxiation incident go up to you and asked how did you get here, with your response being "FROM THE FREAKIN' RAPTURE"? I'd say that there is no comparison.
(sighs) Well, I guess there's still the December 21st, 2012 prediction to keep our hopes up. In the meantime, I guess were just going to live our normal lives, looking back on this funny moment and laugh (and, for those who sold all their stuff and honestly believed in Camping, hopefully use this as a way to self-reflect on their entire lives). Anywho...let's get to the real reason why we're all here, shall we? Here, at last, is my picks for the week's best, and most memorable, people and moments. Sorry about the delay, by the way. It's just been a busy weekend for me, one that I couldn't squeeze two hours of free time to write this blog post, so I hope that you can at least forgive me for my tardiness. Here we go...
Death of the Week: Randall Mario Poffo (a.k.a. "Macho Man" Randy Jackson)
One of the best old-school WWF wrestlers of his time. Sad to see him gone. Hopefully, he's in Heaven now, selling Slim Jims in the afterlife and stopping Jesus from causing the Rapture with every diving elbow drop that he can (great picture by the way).
Video of the Week: "John Lithgow Perform's Gingrich Press Release"
The man is this generation's Orson Wells with the word of mouth, if Orson Welles wasn't he fat and a drunk who couldn't even perform wine commercials sober at Lithgow's age.
Stories of the Week:
- The Actual Story of the Week: I.M.F. Chief Is Held Without Bail in New York After Being Arrested for Sexual Assault Charge
Well, so much for that run for French presidency he was planning.
- The Tiger Woods Saga of '09 Memorial Story of the Week: Arnold Schwarzenegger Had a Love Child With Longtime Maid Over a Decade Ago
Well, at least she was ho....well, maybe not. But at least its not like Arnold kept her as their...oh, that's right, she was still their maid years after she gave birth to his child. Eh, at least he can take proud in the fact that it took ten years and a divorce with his wife, Maria Schriver, for the media to find out in this 24/7 news cycle that we live in now. Otherwise, guess "True Lies" isn't just a movie for the Governator.
Book Excerpts of the Week: "Those Guys Have All the Fun" by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales
The folks behind the outstanding book on the backstage history of "Saturday Night Live" are at it again, this time with a work based on years of interviews and research on the behind-the-scenes history of the WWL, from its humble origins to "The Decision," with all the sexy, shocking and controversial behind-the-scenes background in between. This week, in preparation for the book's release (this Tuesday) the publishers of the book decided to give some copies of the book, which has in turn resulted in plenty of interesting excerpts released from websites across the Web (most notably from Deadspin). Among these excerpts have included passages detailing the asshole/genius that is Keith Olbermann, the ingenious asshole that is Bill Simmons, Michelle Beadle's interesting thoughts on the 2009 Erin Andrews peephole video scandal, and the reveal that "The Decision" was, in fact, an orgy of self-interest (with James in the middle). If those excerpts were a preview of how shit stirring the actual book should be, then I guess I have all choice but to pay the $15 on Amazon.
Loser of the Week: Family Radio Head Harold Camping
for spending millions in advertisement predicting that the world would end on Saturday, only to see it not happen each 6 p.m. local time at a time. On the plus side, the man is 89 years old, so at least he can take comfort in knowing that his life will end sometime soon anyway.
People of the Week: Cleaning Ladies
for once again proving that, besides being simple household and hotel maids cleaning rooms for a living to provide earnings for themselves and their family, they can in fact be responsible for some of the biggest and most scandalous stories in both the politics and pop culture sphere. This was the case once again this week as not one, but two cleaning ladies were responsible (one intentionally, one not) with two of the week's top political scandals that has resulted in two different results. The first was Mildred Patricia Baena, aged 50, who this week unknowingly became the most talked about mistress in the world with the news that she is the mother of well-know actor/California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's ten year old bastard child, something that officially gave Maria Schriver the excuse to divorce Schwarzenegger earlier in the week. While this has zero impact to Schwarzenegger's political career (he was not going to run for re-election anyway), it does have significant impact of his private life and his newly revived movie career (of, which, he had to postpone because of this recent development).
The second, this time knowingly, was a brave African immigrant hotel maid (name currently being anonymous) at New York's Sofitel Hotel who this past week accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn, then chairman of the International Monetary Fund and potential candidate for the upcoming France presidential election, of sexually assaulting her while she was at Strauss-Kahn's luxury suite (last) Sunday evening. According to this FOX News exclusive, the 32 yr. old female came into the suite to see a naked Strauss-Kahn to which then the now disgraced chairman proceeded to chase her, grab her, fondle her, and tried to have sex with her for thirty minutes before she fled to call for police service. I don't know about you, but I don't think that's the right way to greet someone who was going to do something as clean up your own filth. Anyway, unlike Schwarzenegger, this story involving Strauss-Khan and the maid has actually resulted in some big political and economical impact. Not only has this resulted in his resignation as chairman of the I.M.F., which not only means a scramble at the top of the board to find a replacement and also the loss of a key source of financial support in Europe's efforts to repair the debt crisis across the continent, especially in areas such as Greece, Icleand, and Portugal (according to the Washington Post), it also means that a man who was previously one of the most respected men in France has his chances to run against Nicolas Sarkozy completely dashed. So remember, kids, if you're the chairman of an important monetary fund, and you feel really horny, don't use rape as a tool to fight that sexual urge, all right?
What happens from now on as a result of these two stories remains a mystery. Currently, the Strauss-Kahn case is in its earliest developments, with the man still being held by judge's orders in a New York state prison. As for Schwarzenegger and Baena, well there's still the issue of how the child is going to do and how is he going to respond in the future to what must be shocking and life changing news. But for now, one thing is for certain: that from now, the lives of these two women, and the politicians of which they were involved with, are now changed forever.
-Runner-up: Citizens of Winnepeg, Manitoba, for finally getting an NHL team back into their city since the Jets moved to Phoenix in the 1990s with the news that the Atlanta Thrashers would be announcing and beginning their move to the city of 750,000 starting this Tuesday. Overall, this is good for all sides involved except for maybe Gary Bettman: Canada gets another hockey team while Atlanta gets to lessen their burden of teams who aren't the Falcons that they never pay attention to anyway (unless they're in the playoffs). I guess the one downside to the move is that Winnipeg will not be getting the same team that left them not long ago, but strangers that might not even share the same name as the Jets (rumor has it that they will be called the Manitoba Moose, after their current AHL minor league hockey team). But, hey, an NHL team is an NHL team, and that's really all that matters.
And that's the way it was! Again, apologize for the two day delay. But, hey, look at the bright side, at least this week's installment of "End of the Week" did happen, unlike a certain Rapture prediction that was very well-spread during the week. Now, go ahead and enjoy the rest of your day, will ya?
Sincerely,
Your pal: mj15
If you have any opinions on today's post, or if you just have any suggestions or
tips for my next blog entry, e-mail me at: mj1599@aol.com. Your e-mails are greatly appreciated.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Today Is May 22nd, 2011.
That is all.
Sincerely,
Your pal: mj15
If you have any opinions on today's post, or if you just have any suggestions or
tips for my next blog entry, e-mail me at: mj1599@aol.com. Your e-mails are greatly appreciated
Monday, May 16, 2011
Random Thoughts: 05/09/11- 05/16/11
RANDOM THOUGHTS:
With Upronts Week starting today and the 2011 installment of the NBC Thursday Night Comedies Power Ranking coming to a close, this this week is going to be a much larger edition of "Random Thoughts" than it usually is. However, if you're a veteran reader of this blog, I'm sure that reading my writings about TV related stuff a lot in one post is something that is nothing new at this point. However, I'm also proud to say that this week's installment will have much more than that. Included also in tonight's post are: Donald Trump, the Chicago Bulls vs.the Miami Heat in last night's NBA eastern conference finals game, and more. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the pointless and half-baked thoughts being shown to your eyes by mistake.
Anyways, the following were on my mind between Monday, May 9th and Monday, May 16th:
-So shocked about the news that Donald Trump would not run for president. I mean, I knew that these past few weeks have been nothing but pure pointless speculation and self-promotion from the Donald that was only noteworthy for having Barack Obama reveal his birth certificate. I just thought that he'd postpone the announcement until after the season finale of "The Celebrity Apprentice." I guess the ultimatum that NBC gave to Trump must have been very persuasive.
- Yesterday and today marked the beginning of network TV's annual Upronts Week, the time of the year where the four major networks (NBC, FOX, ABC & CBS) and alos what's left of the decapitating corpse that is The CW release their upcoming fall and midseason schedules for the 2011-212 TV year (which, like the school year in most parts of the world, takes place between September and June). In addition, they also announce which shows were cancelled and which ones will be making their TV debut in the coming months to both advertisers and to the American viewing public alike. As of today, only two networks have completed their upfronts: NBC and FOX. Here, now, are some of my many thoughts on the schedules these two networks have released:
1. The cancellation of "Law and Order: Los Angeles" by NBC this week once again proves just how awful the decision was by the network when they decided to cancel the original "Law and Order" around the same time last year. After all, the original "Law and Order" was a pretty reliable show in the ratings department with one season to go from surpassing "Gunsmoke" as the longest running primetime drama in television history, and the fact that the network decided to drop it in favor of such a chaotic mess like "L&O: LA," which hadn't even finished the pilot episode before it was picked up, remained a major mistake when it was first announced, and still remains a huge mistake now that the spin-off that replaced the original was axed itself.
2. I think that NBC might be pushing its luck with "The Sing Off," the show about competing a capella groups, hat previously aired as a filler program during the holiday season but is now airing for two full hours on Mondays. Sure, it worked as a ratings hit in small doses, but I don't know if it will be as fresh and as interesting for viewers when expanded to a two hour time frame. But then again, we live in a country where three of the highest rated shows are "Dancing With the Stars," "American Idol" and "The Voice," so what do I know?
3. So, it's official. "Chuck," despite abysmal ratings, is back for a fifth and final season consisting of 13 episodes, with the only minor change being that it's switched to the Friday night death slot (because if you've ordered the death papers, why not put it in the night where scripted shows go to die?). If there's anything that we can prove about the renewal, its one thing: that no matter how much you doubt them, the showrunners and rabid fans of "Chuck" will never allow their beloved show to get killed off without their permission. It also shows that they will do whatever it takes to make it happen, whether its by decreasing their budget and number of cast members every season to organizing flash mobs in order to eat a footlong at Subway. I bet fans of shows like "Firefly" and "Arrested Development" are feeling pretty jealous of their cult fanbase's success right about now.
4. Weird Wednesday schedule for NBC. Not only are you leading the night with two rookie comedies ("Up All Night" and "Free Agents"), but then you wrap it up with a light-hearted law show in "Harry's Law" and then a graphic procedural in "Law and Order: SVU." Talk about being given a variety of choices!
5. As always, my one biggest complaint in the NBC schedule (just like last year) lies in what the network did on Thursday night. Its not just the fact that they're allowing "Community" to continually deteriorate in the ratings by placing it on the same timeslot with mega hits other networks like "The Big Bang Theory," "American Idol," and now "The X Factor," making a renewal for season four already a stretch, but that they pushed "Parks and Recreations" back an hour in favor of...this. I mean, did you watch the promos for it? Maybe you should watch it again, because from those clips it looks like "Whitney" will make you actually want "Outsourced" back, which I never thought would have been possible until yesterday. Besides, "Whitney" is multi-cam, which makes it completely strange to put it in a lineup that starts off with three single cam shows in a row.
(On the plus side, it does give quality TV nerds such as myself the return of what arguably was the best hour of TV from the '09-'10 season, with "Community" and "Parks and Recreations" being back to back in the fall. in an effort to bring what I'm sure will be some awesome laughs. But that's it,)
6. So I take it that NBC really must not like "Grimm." I mean, what other reason would it be? After all, how does a new show that is placed on the Friday night death slot, with the low rated "Chuck" as its lead-in, count as a network having hope in the success of any show?
7. Why do I have this strange feeling that "Terra Nova," a.k.a. the "Spiderman: Turn on the Dark" of the TV industry, is going to have yet another mishap in the show's production, leaving it to be pushed back towards mideason?
8. There's really not a lot to talk about the FOX schedule as it is pretty conservative overall, and because there's not a lot about it that I really hate. After all, the awful "The Cleveland Show" is being moved into the 6:30 p.m./CT slot on Sundays, where shows like "Futurama," "King of the Hill" and most recently "American Dad" have had the lowest ratings among the rest of the animated lineup, while "American Dad" is moved up to its traditional timeslot after "Family Guy." Also, "Fringe" is still on the schedule for what will likely be its final season (unless the ratings remain just good enough for a season five renewal, which seems unlikely to me). The only thing that makes me angry is that "The X Factor" is also on a Thursday, but that's only because it would mean lower ratings for both "Community" and "Parks and Rec." Smooth move, FOX...I guess.
9. New shows that I'm currently interested in (though that interest remains tentative): "The Playboy Club," "Up All Night," "Free Agents," "Prime Suspect," "Terra Nova" (only because I want to see if the huge budget and constant delays were worth it), "Alcatraz," "The New Girl."
- Stand-up special titles have gotten so lazy lately. Norm Macdonald's "Me Doing Stand-up," "Demetri Martin. Person," Louis C.K.'s "Hilarious," and now Wyatt Cenac's "Comedy Person." Before you know it, someone is going to create a title so lazy and filled with an insane amount of self reference that the world will self combust by its meta humor.
- Here's a fun game for you: when you log onto the Internet next time: try to see how long you can stay on the humor website Cracked.com. If you're able to get out of the website in less than an hour, congratulations! You have the strong will and feisty determination of a bull, or a mid-20s Theodore Roosevelt! The point is that you're doing something that I have yet to do in my few dozens visits to it over the past few weeks.
- Is it just me, or does "Modern Family" look like a show that is running out of fumes and is in their 5th season instead of their 2nd season? Not only is the the show even less funny than what it was last season, but the characters have now become more one dimension than ever with the writers thinking of plots directly out of the Full House Guide to Classic Sitcom Cliches of the '80s and '90s. Basically, its pretty much saved by its outstanding cast from being a horrible CBS show. Its still one of the better comedies on TV, and it will ultimately get its second straight Emmy nomination this summer, but man is it starting to suck (and I never thought that it was great from the beginning)!
- Sad to hear that Gus Johnson is finally leaving CBS for FOX. While the move kind of does make sense from Johnson's career point of view (he was never more than the network's 4th team announcer), the fact that I will no longer be able to hear him call college basketball games during March Madness will be like not hearing Vin Scully call LA Dodger home games, or like not hearing Marv Albert call NBA playoff games: it just wouldn't be the same. Oh well, at least we will always have the great memories from his CBS days. Now let's hope that FOX does the right thing and move him to the NFL's #2 announcing team. After all, NFL Gus is just as good, if not better than NCAA Gus.
- If Taj Gibson's bombastic dunk on Dwayne Wade Sunday night was any indicator of how this highly anticipated Eastern Conference Finals series will play out, consider me a pretty excited Chicago Bulls fan.
-And so, it has come to this: the last power NBC rankings of the year. It's been quite a fun thirteen weeks, filled with some great episodes by shows that are still four of the best comedies in all of television. But now, as with all of the other good things in life, it must come to an end. I will reveal the obvious winner (obvious if you've been reading this site regularly, that is) in a moment. But first, one last ranking...for old times sake:
1. "Parks and Recreations"- "The Fight" (40 points)
Because of "Parks and Rec." debuting its season in January and because NBC wanted all of their 16 episodes in season 3 to be completed around the same time that every one of their other scripted shows did, fans of the show are getting a treat with two double feature of episodes in the next two weeks. This week, it was "The Fight," about the gang's night at the Snakehole Lounge to celebrate the launch of Tom's toxic alcohol (along with the chaos and regret that soon ensued), and "Road Trip," which mainly revolved around Leslie and Ben taking a road trip and trying to avoid hooking up in fear of their job security during it. While I thought "Road Trip" went pretty well, it was the first half of the double feature, "The Fight," that was head over shoulders above it in both hilarity and quality. After all, pretty much every scene that was in the bar was pure comedy gold, from Jean Ralphio struggling to end his raps with a rhyme to the end when they were all going home and had Jerry tied outside the vehicle like a Christmas tree.Oh, and it had a drunken Ron Swanson dancing for five seconds wearing April's ridiculous hat. I could replay that moment all day if I could...
2. "Community"- "For A Few Paintballs More (Part 2)" (35 points)
What a sophomore season it has been for one of TV's best comedies! 24 episodes, 90-95% of it great, with quite a few of them being nothing but awesome. Some awesome episodes in particular: "Anthropology 101," "Epidemiology," "Cooperative Calligraphy," "Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design," "Mixology Certification," "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas," "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons," "Intermediate Documentary Film making," "Critical Film Studies," "Paradigms of Human Memory," and last week's "Fist Full of Paintballs". This episode, I believe, can also be included among the list. Sure, it didn't live up to the excitement and epicness of last week's part one, and it was much more of the "Modern Warfare" sequel that I imagined they would do when I first heard of the episode's concept (sort of a bad thing), but it was still a pretty damn good season finale in retrospect. It was funny ("POP WHAT, MAGNITUDE?"), it was action packed, it was tense, it was sexy, it was bold and it was simply a really fun half hour of entertainment to watch as a viewer (just like last week). Plus, it opened up some doors for potential storylines in season three, including a potential Abed-Annie romance (with role play being involved, I assume) and Pierce acting as an outsider of the group in a similar fashion to Chang this season. Oh, and I think Alison Brie accidentally gave me an orange paint fetish (something that I never knew was possible before Thursday), but anywho...a really good episode overall. I'm now practically counting down the days until my favorite TV study group returns for a third season!
3. "Parks and Recreations"- "Road Trip" (25 points)
Another reason why I found "The Fight" to be better than this episode lies in some of the flaws seen in this episode. The most basic complaint that I have of it was that certain elements of the episode (specifically the "Know Ya Boo" plot and the part with Chris pairing the two together in order for the show's writer to move Ben and Leslie's attraction storyline into high gear) that felt a bit cliched, at least for a show as original as "Parks and Recreations" have been this season (though you could argue that last week's episode was basically a parody of the classic "Lemon of Troy" episode from "The Simpsons"). But, it was still really funny, and Ron Swanson shined once again in this episode by teaching a little girl libertarian ideals, so I'm going to consider this episode another success to what has arguably been a perfect season.
4. "The Office"- "Dwight K. Schrute, (Acting) Manager" (20 points)
I'm willing to give this show a break for the remainder of the season, mostly because the final three episodes are basically a transitional period from the Steve Carell era to the (Insert Actor Playing Newest Manager Here) era that will begin at the end of next week's season finale. If anything, I found this episode satisfying in that it not only gave the fans a chance to see what would it be like for Dwight to rule over the branch as manager but also proved that the show can be funny without Carell leading the pack now that he's gone. Some notable examples of this in this week's episode includes the Dwight-Kevin massage scene, and the nice reveal at the end with Creed becoming the new acting manager based purely on seniority. Overall, it was okay, but not comparable to how good "Parks and Rec." and "Community were tonight. Also, the other time that Dwight was acting manager (season 3's "The Job) was a lot better (it did introduce us to the concept of Shrute bucks, after all!). Should be interesting to see how the season finale plays out next week, though.
And now, the final tally (at last):
1. "Parks and Recreations": 450 points (14 episodes)
2. "Community": 395 points (13 episodes)
3. "The Office": 325 points (12 episodes)
4. "30 Rock": 285 points (12 episodes)
And so, your winner of the NBC Thursday Night Comedy Power Rankings 2011 is...
PARKS AND RECREATIONS!
Not a real surprise. While "Community" did have a few great episodes here and there, this show (which had one of the most stellar seasons of comedy TV that I could remember) started off week #1 on top with a perfect 80/80 and has not once given up the lead. This is in large part due to a number of factors that include, among other things, stellar writing, wonderful acting from the main cast, the great backdrop of Pawnee, Indiana that remains one of TV's biggest gold mines, and, of course, Ron F@cking Swanson. I want to thank co-creators Michael Shur and Greg Daniels and the rest of the cast and crew for their hard work putting together such a wonderful show, and for that I give them...nothing, because this is a segment of the blog based on subjective opinions that has no real important value to it other than a method of providing some sort of entertainment to my readers. Though, I suppose my constant praise of it should count...but I'm not technically a critic, so that ties back once again with the pointlessness of this whole rankings.
While I'm at it, here are some other random awards involving these four comedies:
a. Best Leading Actor: Steve Carell as Michael Scott in "The Office"
b. Best Leading Actress: Amy Poehler as Leslie Knope in "Parks and Recreations"
c. Best Supporting Actor: So many good choices, but I'm going to give it to Nick Offerman, who played Ron Swanson in "Parks and Rec." in a slight edge over Donald Glover and Danny Pudi, who were both great on "Community"
d. Best Supporting Actress: Jane Krakowski had one of her best seasons yet, so I'm giving it to her for her role in "30 Rock" as Jenna.
e. Best Return to Form: "30 Rock" in season 5
f. Best Improvement: Pretty much all of the four shows improved from their previous seasons, but when it comes to improving itself as a season went along, nothing came close to "The Office" season seven, for going from just plain atrocious during their first half (remember "The Christening?") to becoming a very tolerable, quite enjoyable second half (capped off, of course, by Carell's tearful goodbye episode in April).
g. Best Episode of "Community": As mentioned earlier, "Community" season 2 had its share of great, if not perfect episodes. So instead of singling out just one episode, here's a top five list (a very difficult one for me to make as I loved so many more episodes than just five) of the best episodes (including some pre-January ones) for what has been one of my favorite TV seasons of all-time:
5. "Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design"
4. "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons"
3. "A Fistful of Paintballs/For a Few Paintballs More (two parter)"
2. "Cooperative Calligraphy"
1. "Paradigms of Human Memory"
h. Best Episode of "The Office": "Michael Says Goodbye" for obvious reasons.
i. Best Episode of "30 Rock": "Double Edged Sword"
j. Best Episode of "Parks and Recreations": Like "Community" season two, "Parks and Recreations" season three ranks among some of my favorite TV comedy seasons of all-time. Therefore, like this year's runner-up, I must give this TV season's champion a top five countdown of its own:
5. "Harvest Festival"
4. "The Fight"
3. "Ron and Tammy: Part II"
2. "The Flu"
1. "Andy and April's Big Fancy Party"
As you may have already guessed from the NBC Upfronts release link earlier, the sixth season of "30 Rock" will be pushed aside until midseason (possibly in the former timeslot of the sure-to-be-awful "Whitney") in order to cooperate with Tina Fey's pregnancy (damn you, Jeff Richmond, and your potent sperm!), so you know what that means...no more power rankings until January at the earliest! Yay for no early return in year 2! I'm hopeful that all of these four shows come back next season once again in splendid shape (or, in the case of "The Office," simply tolerable without Michael Scott) so that we don't have another two horse race like the one that we've had most of this season between "Parks and Rec." and "Community." Also, I'm really hoping that the two Wednesday comedies on NBC debuting in the fall, "Up All Night" and "Free Agents" can be good enough (and not cancelled) to be included onto next year's list. Because if there's one thing I know about sequels, it's that these rankings need to get bigger and more high profile than the previous one. But for now I guess its off to around four months or so of summer TV shows and (shivers) going outside while socializing with other people.
Hope you enjoyed this longer-than-usual version of the RTs. Next one should be coming at ya' next Monday, although, if certain people are to be believed, it won't happen because Judgment Day will finally be upon us this Saturday (in which case, I just want to thank this time by giving another sincere thank you for being such a polite and courteous reader of the site for the past 22 months on both her and on MySpace). Have a good week!
Sincerely,
Your pal: mj15
If you have any opinions on today's post, or if you just have any suggestions or
tips for my next blog entry, e-mail me at: mj1599@aol.com. Your e-mails are greatly appreciated.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
End of the Week: 05/08/11- 05/14/11
END OF THE WEEK:
I've got birthday parties for two of my nephews that were born around the same time to get to later tonight, so I've decided to write this post earlier than usual. They're two of my favorite nephews, so I've decided to go all out and buy the older one his first acoustic guitar and the little one every important baseball equipment necessary for a four year old, meaning a Louisville slugger bat, a helmet, a glove and an actual baseball. Now if that doesn't scream Favorite Uncle, then I don't know what is. Anyways, here are a few things that I considered the best and most memorable something something from the past seven days.
Dumb Controversy of the Week: Michelle Obama's Invitation of Rapper Common to Read Poetry at the White House
I'll just let Jon Stewart, who had his take on the "issue" Wednesday, break it down. I mean, all he did was basically take the words right out of my mouth Take it away, Jon!
Stories of the Week:
-The Actual Story of the Week: Mississippi River Areas Experience Historic Level Floods
The floods have reached devastating levels not seen since the Great Depression, ruining the lives of thousands from residents in urban Memphis to farmers in Arkansas. My thoughts are with all of them, and I hope that enough will be done to help them recover as quickly and efficiently as possible.
- The Tiger Woods Saga of '09 Memorial Story of the Week: Osama Bin Laden Had Porn in His $1 Million "Mansion" Prior to Death
In his defense, the movies "72 Virgins Squirting" and "Burkake" had some pretty hot scenes.
Newspaper Correction of the Week: The New York Times, for writing what may perhaps have been the nerdiest corrections ever issued. From the weekend edition of the Times:
"An item in the Extra Bases baseball notebook last Sunday misidentified, in some editions, the origin of the name Orcrist the Goblin Cleaver, which Mets pitcher R. A. Dickey gave one of his bats. Orcrist was not, as Dickey had said, the name of the sword used by Bilbo Baggins in the Misty Mountains in “The Hobbit”; Orcrist was the sword used by the dwarf Thorin Oakenshield in the book. (Bilbo Baggins’s sword was called Sting.) "
Dear God, what a glorious apology! If I didn't know any better, I'd say that the person who issued the apology were wearing a collared red shirt while completing it so punctiliously. In fact, as the folks of Deadspin pointed out, everything about it is just great, from Dickey being such a "LOTR" geek to name his bat after one of Bilbo's swords to the person who pointed out the mistake and then must have had one of the geekiest erections ever while reading the corrections section soon after. And yet, when I discuss the plot holes of "The Dark Knight," people just ignore me.
Video of the Week: "Jack Sparrow (ft. Michael Bolton)"
Great, just what I need: another Lonely Island song that will take months to get out of my head. And I had just gotten "I Just Had Sex" out of my head three weeks ago! Oh well, at least Michael Bolton's brilliant cameo made it all worth it.
Massacres of the Week: The Large Amount of TV Show Cancellations From FOX, NBC and ABC
The recap:
a. FOX: Became the first network TV station to commit bloodbath on Tuesday when they decided to cancel all of their remaining scripted programs on their plate that had yet to be renewed, including rookie comedies "Breaking In" and "Traffic Light," and all of their three lower rated but respectable dramas ("Lie to Me," "Human Target," and my favorite of the three, "The Chicago Code") in favor of four new shows, including "Bones" spin-off "Finders," the J.J. Abrams produced "Acatraz," and the comedies "I Hate My Teenage Daughter" and "The New Girl."
b. NBC: Controlled all major TV news Wednesday and Thursday outside of Ashton Kutcher joining "Two and a Half Men" with the cancellations of the low rated reality show "America's Next Great Restuarant," the critically despised comedy "Outsourced," and the both low rated and critically despised dramas "The Event" and "Law and Order: Los Angeles." They've even managed to cancel highly talked about shows that hadn't even aired, most notably including David E. Kelley's reboot of "Wonder Woman" (whose pilot, I had heard, was awful).
Wonder Woman" remake. In other words, with the exception of "Harry's Law," NBC seems to be the only network who managed to cancel all of their crappy TV shows.
c. ABC: Saved the best bubble bloodbath for last when, on Friday, they announced that they were cancelling seven scripted shows, including veteran drama "Brothers & Sisters," the cult sci-fi sophmore "V," and low-rated but still critically shows liked "Detroit 1-8-7" and "No Ordinary Family."
In a way, these massive amount of cancellations are just a nice, big metaphor of how awful this 2010-11 TV season, one that has featured one of the worst string of new shows in recent memory, has been four these four networks and how bad the state of network TV is in general. Take FOX for instance. Out of the eight new scripted shows they debuted this past year, only two of them have been added onto next season's schedule, both of which are comedies ("Raising Hope" and "Bob's Burgers" who coincidentally were the best reviewed of those eight shows). NBC is another example of this, with only one of their rookie scripted shows coming back this season, "Harry's Law," and that's only because its developed a surprisingly large following among old people.
In a way, I suppose this is a good thing. Almost none of the poorly reviewed shows from this past year, with the exception of "Harry's Law," are still part of the future schedules for these three networks. Also, the fact that these shows struggled this season meant that some brilliant but low rated shows that have struggled to get pass the 1.5 demo rating like "Community," "Fringe" and, most recently, "Chuck" have been renewed for a 3rd, 4th and 5th season respectively. Had it been, say, five years ago, I don't think that not a single one of three would have remained on the air past their current point (which is what makes the cancellation of "Arrested Development" by FOX in 2006 even more bittersweet). Only left to do now is to wait for the long-anticipated upfronts next week, see where of the new and returning shows are scheduled next season, react to the upfronts in happiness (ex: "Parks and Recreations" paired next to "The Office") and/or disgust (ex: "Parks and Recreations" bumped to midseason in favor of "Outsourced"), and then spend the summer watching cable and waiting to see all of those shows premiere in early September and early January.
Person of the Week: Beauty Pageant Mom Kerry Campbell
for possibly giving whoever was currently considered by a majority of the human population as the Worst Mom of the Year a run for their money while also continuing to damage the reputation of pageant moms everywhere with one single surprising story. According to this "Good Morning America" news report, the 34 year old woman has an 8 year old daughter named Brittany who entered the highly competitive world of the Little Miss beauty pageant circuit. As Brittany began competing, she started to receive complaints from other pageant mothers (complaints that any smart person would have realized were not sincere, but rather aimed at messing with the competition's head and destroying them from within) about some "wrinkles" that she apparently had (though I'm pretty sure that they just were adorable child dimples). As a result, Campbell has since been injecting here eight year old daughter with painful injections of botox to remove those so-called "wrinkles" ever since.
While many of your readers might react to this story with a mix of shock, anger and disgust, Campbell goes on in the "Good Morning America" report to dictate how she has no remorse in her choices and even went on to justify the injections of botox by saying that she's not the only pageant mother to do so (When in Rome, amirite?) and that 8 year old Brittany insisted on doing it. Besides, in a field as tough and potentially soul-crushing as the beauty pageant circuit, one must do whatever it takes to getting the winning edge, whether its going as far as injecting botox to someone who has years left before hitting puberty or Brazilian waxing parts of the body that has yet to grow hair (just paraphrasing here). Still, while little Brittany appears all right and not scarred at all by the past few months, one can't help but worry the emotional and psychological damages of the young girl in future years to come. After all, insecurity about body images for female doesn't begin with photoshopped pictures of beautiful women in magazines, but from the people closest to them. The fact that this mother has basically shown to her daughter that she doesn't view her as a beautiful young girl but rather as someone who she thinks as so imperfect that she needs screwed-up procedure done on her young and innocent face is an unspoken message that was not only the wrong thing to do, but one that will have dramatic ramifications throughout her whole life. And another thing, if Campbell constantly mentions that the tough competition of the beauty pagaent industry is what influenced her to give daughter Brittany the botox injections, then why does she just quit, or at least treat it as some fun event? Seems to me like this whole shenanigan is just an example of the mother trying to fulfill the gaping hole in her soul and self esteem issues by getting succesful from her daughter (instead of, you know, going out, losing weight, and setting a right example for Brittany) than the girl wanting a competitive advantage.
Look, maybe just all reacting. Maybe Brittany will grow up to be a wonderful down-to-earth girl without these botox treatment having any negative impact in her life. Regardless, whatever Kerry Campbell did should not be tolerated and should be shouted down upon, even if she's part of this world of shame, abuse and idiocy that has been exposed through news reports like these and all of the countless TV shows about it on TLC. Honestly, I can't believe it took until yesterday for Child Welfare Services to begin investigating whether this awful mother was abusing her child. Maybe now she will be able to get the message.
(UPDATE 05/25: If this Taiwanese New Media animation is to be believed, and I do sincerely believe that its true, then this entire "Botox Mom" story is a hoax. Still doesn't not make her a bad mother, hoax or not).
And that's the way it was! Sorry if the rant at the end was both lengthy and/or not-cohesive. Its just that I found the Brittany Campbell story pretty appaling to the point that I was angrier than your average Jezebel commenter when it comes to anything that they find sexist. But, hey, I'm all done now. Now, enjoy the rest of the weekend, everyone!
Sincerely,
Your pal: mj15
If you have any opinions on today's post, or if you just have any suggestions or
tips for my next blog entry, e-mail me at: mj1599@aol.com. Your e-mails are greatly appreciated.
I've got birthday parties for two of my nephews that were born around the same time to get to later tonight, so I've decided to write this post earlier than usual. They're two of my favorite nephews, so I've decided to go all out and buy the older one his first acoustic guitar and the little one every important baseball equipment necessary for a four year old, meaning a Louisville slugger bat, a helmet, a glove and an actual baseball. Now if that doesn't scream Favorite Uncle, then I don't know what is. Anyways, here are a few things that I considered the best and most memorable something something from the past seven days.
Dumb Controversy of the Week: Michelle Obama's Invitation of Rapper Common to Read Poetry at the White House
I'll just let Jon Stewart, who had his take on the "issue" Wednesday, break it down. I mean, all he did was basically take the words right out of my mouth Take it away, Jon!
Stories of the Week:
-The Actual Story of the Week: Mississippi River Areas Experience Historic Level Floods
The floods have reached devastating levels not seen since the Great Depression, ruining the lives of thousands from residents in urban Memphis to farmers in Arkansas. My thoughts are with all of them, and I hope that enough will be done to help them recover as quickly and efficiently as possible.
- The Tiger Woods Saga of '09 Memorial Story of the Week: Osama Bin Laden Had Porn in His $1 Million "Mansion" Prior to Death
In his defense, the movies "72 Virgins Squirting" and "Burkake" had some pretty hot scenes.
Newspaper Correction of the Week: The New York Times, for writing what may perhaps have been the nerdiest corrections ever issued. From the weekend edition of the Times:
"An item in the Extra Bases baseball notebook last Sunday misidentified, in some editions, the origin of the name Orcrist the Goblin Cleaver, which Mets pitcher R. A. Dickey gave one of his bats. Orcrist was not, as Dickey had said, the name of the sword used by Bilbo Baggins in the Misty Mountains in “The Hobbit”; Orcrist was the sword used by the dwarf Thorin Oakenshield in the book. (Bilbo Baggins’s sword was called Sting.) "
Dear God, what a glorious apology! If I didn't know any better, I'd say that the person who issued the apology were wearing a collared red shirt while completing it so punctiliously. In fact, as the folks of Deadspin pointed out, everything about it is just great, from Dickey being such a "LOTR" geek to name his bat after one of Bilbo's swords to the person who pointed out the mistake and then must have had one of the geekiest erections ever while reading the corrections section soon after. And yet, when I discuss the plot holes of "The Dark Knight," people just ignore me.
Video of the Week: "Jack Sparrow (ft. Michael Bolton)"
Great, just what I need: another Lonely Island song that will take months to get out of my head. And I had just gotten "I Just Had Sex" out of my head three weeks ago! Oh well, at least Michael Bolton's brilliant cameo made it all worth it.
Massacres of the Week: The Large Amount of TV Show Cancellations From FOX, NBC and ABC
The recap:
a. FOX: Became the first network TV station to commit bloodbath on Tuesday when they decided to cancel all of their remaining scripted programs on their plate that had yet to be renewed, including rookie comedies "Breaking In" and "Traffic Light," and all of their three lower rated but respectable dramas ("Lie to Me," "Human Target," and my favorite of the three, "The Chicago Code") in favor of four new shows, including "Bones" spin-off "Finders," the J.J. Abrams produced "Acatraz," and the comedies "I Hate My Teenage Daughter" and "The New Girl."
b. NBC: Controlled all major TV news Wednesday and Thursday outside of Ashton Kutcher joining "Two and a Half Men" with the cancellations of the low rated reality show "America's Next Great Restuarant," the critically despised comedy "Outsourced," and the both low rated and critically despised dramas "The Event" and "Law and Order: Los Angeles." They've even managed to cancel highly talked about shows that hadn't even aired, most notably including David E. Kelley's reboot of "Wonder Woman" (whose pilot, I had heard, was awful).
Wonder Woman" remake. In other words, with the exception of "Harry's Law," NBC seems to be the only network who managed to cancel all of their crappy TV shows.
c. ABC: Saved the best bubble bloodbath for last when, on Friday, they announced that they were cancelling seven scripted shows, including veteran drama "Brothers & Sisters," the cult sci-fi sophmore "V," and low-rated but still critically shows liked "Detroit 1-8-7" and "No Ordinary Family."
In a way, these massive amount of cancellations are just a nice, big metaphor of how awful this 2010-11 TV season, one that has featured one of the worst string of new shows in recent memory, has been four these four networks and how bad the state of network TV is in general. Take FOX for instance. Out of the eight new scripted shows they debuted this past year, only two of them have been added onto next season's schedule, both of which are comedies ("Raising Hope" and "Bob's Burgers" who coincidentally were the best reviewed of those eight shows). NBC is another example of this, with only one of their rookie scripted shows coming back this season, "Harry's Law," and that's only because its developed a surprisingly large following among old people.
In a way, I suppose this is a good thing. Almost none of the poorly reviewed shows from this past year, with the exception of "Harry's Law," are still part of the future schedules for these three networks. Also, the fact that these shows struggled this season meant that some brilliant but low rated shows that have struggled to get pass the 1.5 demo rating like "Community," "Fringe" and, most recently, "Chuck" have been renewed for a 3rd, 4th and 5th season respectively. Had it been, say, five years ago, I don't think that not a single one of three would have remained on the air past their current point (which is what makes the cancellation of "Arrested Development" by FOX in 2006 even more bittersweet). Only left to do now is to wait for the long-anticipated upfronts next week, see where of the new and returning shows are scheduled next season, react to the upfronts in happiness (ex: "Parks and Recreations" paired next to "The Office") and/or disgust (ex: "Parks and Recreations" bumped to midseason in favor of "Outsourced"), and then spend the summer watching cable and waiting to see all of those shows premiere in early September and early January.
Person of the Week: Beauty Pageant Mom Kerry Campbell
for possibly giving whoever was currently considered by a majority of the human population as the Worst Mom of the Year a run for their money while also continuing to damage the reputation of pageant moms everywhere with one single surprising story. According to this "Good Morning America" news report, the 34 year old woman has an 8 year old daughter named Brittany who entered the highly competitive world of the Little Miss beauty pageant circuit. As Brittany began competing, she started to receive complaints from other pageant mothers (complaints that any smart person would have realized were not sincere, but rather aimed at messing with the competition's head and destroying them from within) about some "wrinkles" that she apparently had (though I'm pretty sure that they just were adorable child dimples). As a result, Campbell has since been injecting here eight year old daughter with painful injections of botox to remove those so-called "wrinkles" ever since.
While many of your readers might react to this story with a mix of shock, anger and disgust, Campbell goes on in the "Good Morning America" report to dictate how she has no remorse in her choices and even went on to justify the injections of botox by saying that she's not the only pageant mother to do so (When in Rome, amirite?) and that 8 year old Brittany insisted on doing it. Besides, in a field as tough and potentially soul-crushing as the beauty pageant circuit, one must do whatever it takes to getting the winning edge, whether its going as far as injecting botox to someone who has years left before hitting puberty or Brazilian waxing parts of the body that has yet to grow hair (just paraphrasing here). Still, while little Brittany appears all right and not scarred at all by the past few months, one can't help but worry the emotional and psychological damages of the young girl in future years to come. After all, insecurity about body images for female doesn't begin with photoshopped pictures of beautiful women in magazines, but from the people closest to them. The fact that this mother has basically shown to her daughter that she doesn't view her as a beautiful young girl but rather as someone who she thinks as so imperfect that she needs screwed-up procedure done on her young and innocent face is an unspoken message that was not only the wrong thing to do, but one that will have dramatic ramifications throughout her whole life. And another thing, if Campbell constantly mentions that the tough competition of the beauty pagaent industry is what influenced her to give daughter Brittany the botox injections, then why does she just quit, or at least treat it as some fun event? Seems to me like this whole shenanigan is just an example of the mother trying to fulfill the gaping hole in her soul and self esteem issues by getting succesful from her daughter (instead of, you know, going out, losing weight, and setting a right example for Brittany) than the girl wanting a competitive advantage.
Look, maybe just all reacting. Maybe Brittany will grow up to be a wonderful down-to-earth girl without these botox treatment having any negative impact in her life. Regardless, whatever Kerry Campbell did should not be tolerated and should be shouted down upon, even if she's part of this world of shame, abuse and idiocy that has been exposed through news reports like these and all of the countless TV shows about it on TLC. Honestly, I can't believe it took until yesterday for Child Welfare Services to begin investigating whether this awful mother was abusing her child. Maybe now she will be able to get the message.
(UPDATE 05/25: If this Taiwanese New Media animation is to be believed, and I do sincerely believe that its true, then this entire "Botox Mom" story is a hoax. Still doesn't not make her a bad mother, hoax or not).
And that's the way it was! Sorry if the rant at the end was both lengthy and/or not-cohesive. Its just that I found the Brittany Campbell story pretty appaling to the point that I was angrier than your average Jezebel commenter when it comes to anything that they find sexist. But, hey, I'm all done now. Now, enjoy the rest of the weekend, everyone!
Sincerely,
Your pal: mj15
If you have any opinions on today's post, or if you just have any suggestions or
tips for my next blog entry, e-mail me at: mj1599@aol.com. Your e-mails are greatly appreciated.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
NFL Offseason Check-up Double Dip: The NFL Lock...Ah, Screw It! Here's Some Pat Robertson Craziness! (And April's Best)
(Cam Newton, 1st pick of the 2011 NFL draft, poses with the most hated commissioner in sports right now, Roger Goodell)
I was originally planning on spending some time during the final week of April doing the same thing that I did last year around that time, which would have been to write some sort of NFL related column either on the heels of the draft or after round one. This time, however, I was not only planning on talking about the the sport's biggest event between the Super Bowl and the Hall of Fame Game, but also the newest developments in this excruciating 2011 owners lockout. But that would be kind of pointless for a few notable reasons. For starters, I have payed less attention to this year's draft and this year's draft class than I had in recent memory. Second, because its May 10th, writing about why the Vikings screwed up with the Christian Ponder pick, why Cam Newton is the next Jamarcus Russell and why everyone is overvaluing Mark Ingram would seem, well, outdated. Third, there's not much to say about this lockout that hasn't already been said. It started out when both the players and the owners couldn't come out of the mediations with a CBA agreement in March, extended until mid April when pro-players judge Susan Nelson ruled against the owners in Brady vs. the NFL, basically saying "Are you kidding me owners?!?! You made $9 billion and are greedy for some more?!?!," putting the NFL in a state of limbo where there was technically no lockout and yet the owners still treated it as if the fight was not over, and then reinstated hours after round 1 of the draft wrapped up. Add all of the spewed trash talking and arguments coming from both sides of the aisle and you have something that has yet to make any progress (unless another court ruling comes forward voting in favor of the players) and one that is probably going to last until late July for this whole stupid mess to wrap up.
What I would like to dedicate this time, however, would be this "700 Club" clip featuring the greatest logical televangelist of all time, the one and only Pat Robertson. This clip, hyperbole aside, will make you want to question not only your association with fellow Christians like him, but also your sanity...
Wow, that all makes sense! I always knew that lib-tards such as myself like to kill babies, and that we tend to have lesbians, who don't have babies (unlike straight females), as part of our group. But, I never knew that people of my ilk have been purposely having abortions because of our love lesbians, until now! Pat Robertson, you, sir, are a modern member of the 17th Century Enlightment, and a true genius among all men. In fact, here are around twenty other normally crazy ideas, thoughts and beliefs that Robertson believes are true based on the words of the Bible and his so-called "logic":
1. Alligators only visit people's bathrooms whenever they believe that the person using it has been masturbating too much.
2. The 2010 BP oil spill occured when 22 year old Johnny Ren of Huntsville, Alabama chose to be a homosexual the night before.
3. The ending of "Inception" was just another one of Dom's dreams.
4. Dinosaur remains were planted by Jesus in order to trick nonbelievers.
5. Jay Leno's relatable charms and blue collar comedy makes him the funniest man in America.
6. 9/11 was a plot created by Osama Bin Laden in order to warn the country that Armaggedon was near.
7. Cancelling the original "Law and Order" while also introducing the spin-off "Law and Order: Los Angeles" was a great idea for NBC because the former is old and stale while LA has just been begging for another law procedural for years.
8. God created the great Northeast blizzard last winter in order to stop people from driving somewhere that would allow them to do homosexual things (I'm not kidding about this one).
9. Haiti deserved the earhtquake they got for "making a pact to the devil" in the 18th Century (I'm also not kidding about this one).
10. Isn't it weird how, just as a black man is President, we have three devastating earthquakes in Chile, Haiti, and now Japan, during a span of a year and a half? Just sayin'
11. Jews deserved what they got in the Holocaust for mocking Hitler's early adulthood paintings!
12. George W. Bush was blessed by God during his Presidency (Yep, he actually said this, too!).
13. We should just kill Hugo Chavez. I don't care what rights he did in his life. He's a bad guy, so we should just kill him (This thing practically writes for itself!).
14. I just had a nice talk earlier this week with the CEO of Lehman Brothers. Nice guy, seems pretty honest and down to Earth. I would invest my entire life savings toward that company if I were you.
15. Cold pizza is better than hot pizza.
16. Why can't more writers be as smart, witty, sophisticated and talented as Peter King?
17. The birth certificate of Barack Obama is nothing more than a liberal pinko cover-up to protect the really story of how pro-Islam fundamentalists planted his birth announcement in the Hawaiian newspapers in order to raise him and tutor him into becoming an elected president.
18. I see nothing wrong in how Sarah Palin has raised her family. Just a simply family of six or so raised on moral Christian values. I know caused I watch her TLC reality show!
19. The banning of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was the single worst catastrophe in American history since the TV show debut of that awful Charlie Rose.
20. The Dallas Mavericks are going to get crushed in the 2011 NBA playoffs. I mean, a German leading a team to victory over several dozen blue-blooded American males? Impossible!
Can't wait to see what other half-baked thoughts and exhortations Robertson has crammed inside his membrane for the world to hear! And now, ladies and gentlemen, after a quite lengthy delay that lasted ten days longer than it should have, here is the brand new installment of "End of the Month" for the month of April, 2011:
END OF THE MONTH
Wedding of the Month: That of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, and Kate Middleton
Nothing much left to say that hasn't already been mentioned from the news media's 24/7 beating of the story to death as it was happening. Kind of interesting how the two things that ended up stealing the show on that day were not the newlywed couple, but Princess Beatrice's hat and Pippa Middleton's "angelic" body. Anyways, congratulations to the two of them, and I assumed that the prince enjoyed royally defiling his newly named Duchess the night after.
TV Premieres of the Month: "Game of Thrones" and "The Voice"
The first show is probably one of the few programs on television right out that seems to get better with every episode. Also, unlike the other big cable premiere from April, "The Killing," the show is filled with believable dialogue (for a fantasy world set in medieval times, that is) and a bunch of characters that I either enjoy, are well acted, or am really interested in. Can't wait to see how the remainder of the season unfolds. The second show on the list, meanwhile, is a nice breath of fresh air in the reality competition genre, with better and more contemporary judges/coaches than the folks at "American Idol," who have no backbone at all when it comes to criticizing a singer, better singers, and a never before seen in America format. Plus, it actually gave NBC its first hit this TV season! What more can a reality singing competition do?
TV Ending of the Month: The Steve Carell Era of "The Office"
While I am still interested in the show and will be curious to see how they can pull off these next few seasons without Michael Scott in charge at Scranton (who doesn't love a good experiment?), the show will still never be the same without America's favorite non-self aware man child forcing himself upon our TV sets every Thursday nights. That's what she said.
-Runner-up: Glenn Beck's weekday TV show on FOX News
Because when you stop doing what made you so polarizing and start spewing weird conspiracy theories all the time, you know you've done enough.
Politician of the Month: Arizona Senator Jon Kyl, for both lying in front of Congress and the American people watching on C-SPAN by saying that abortion was part of 90% of Planned Parenthood, and then covering it up by saying that it was "not intended to be a factual statement." Such a brilliant loophole, for someone whose main accomplishment in life was pissing on the face of every St. Jude's Children's Hospital patient at the age of 31.
#otintendedtobeafactualstatement
Videos of the Month:
-This Month in Leaders of Eastern European Nations:
1) "Medvedev Dance- Russian President Dance Moves"
In Russia...oh, forget it! Just watch.
2) "Czech President Vaclav Klaus Steals Pen:
You would be surprised how little the Czech budget is saved towards buying office supplies.
- The Most Educational: College Humor's "The 6 Girlfriends You'll Date in College"
Interestingly enough, the only difference between this educational comedy video and reality is that, those six girlfriends will not be as hot.
- The Most Meta: YouTube's Top 5 Videos for 04/01/1911
Now you're on the trolley, Mr. Real McCoy!
- The Cutest: "Girl Join the Dark Side"
I haven't seen someone lose their soul to peer pressure like that since the '08 election.
- The Most Rhythmic: "2 Yr. Old Wakes Up to Waka Flocka"
Isn't it cute when little kids live up to their racial stereotypes?
- The Most Sublime: "SF to Paris in Two Minutes"
Eleven hours, roughly three thousand miles, crappy food and airline theater films, annoying children, and massive jetlag soon after...all worth it.
- The Trickiest: "Reverse Psychology at Its Purest"
Bugs Bunny would be proud.
- Crap, Another Video With a Baby! Aww, But It's So Cute, Though! What the Hell, Here It Is: "Hysterical Bubbles!"
It kinda makes "Baby scared of mother's face" look like "Baby laughs at ripped paper"!
- The Funniest: "The Tornado Took My Hamburger, My Fries and a Drink!"
Thank God the U.S. military found Osama and there have been a cavalcade of people helping those devastated by the earthquakes in Alabama! Maybe now we can finally help invest our time to find this man's fast food.
- The Biggest Blooper: "Sergio Ramos Drops Real Madrid's 2011 Copa Del Rey Trophy"
The trophy didn't fall by accident. It just committed suicide because he was an FC Barcelona fan.
- The Most Athletic:"Great High School Baseball Play in Tulepo!"
Ladies and gentlemen, meet HS baseball's Barry Sanders.
- The Most Awesome: "Einstein vs. Stephen Hawking- Epic Rap Battles of History #7"
Can't believe that it took me until Masters Saturday to finally discover this gem of an Internet series for the first time with this sweet video. Its like when I listened to "Stairway to Heaven" for the first time...when I was fifteen. Can't wait to see who these guy match-up next time.
Official Band Break-up of the Month: LCD Soundsystem
Well, at least one of the best dance-rock bands of the last twenty years ended on a high note.
Stories of the Month:
-The Most Thrilling: Southwest Airlines Plane Makes Emergency Landing After 3 Foot Hole Rips Into Side of Plane
Now that's what I call airline entertaining!
-The Most Devastating: The Violent 80 Mph. Tornado That Killed Around 300 in the Southern U.S.
It's a story that leaves you speechless when you hear of its destructiveness. Wish the best and speediest of all recoveries for the families suffered by that awful storm.
-The End of an Era: U.S. Government Shut Down Online Poker Sites Full Tilt and Pokerstars For American Players
And with it, a part of every gambling addict's heart goes with it.
- The Best 11th Hour-Close Finish: U.S. Government Avoids Government Shutdown
If you think this budget battle was a nightmare, you just wait for the one that will go down in 2012. You talking about using everything and the kitchen sink, that will be it.
- The Most Violent: 23 People Killed In Pakistan During Protest Over U.S. Koran Burning
Thanks again, Terry Jones! It's like you've completely forgotten how pissed everyone was of you in September.
- The Saddest: Woman Kills Herself and Three Children By Driving Into Hudson River
Such a tragic thing to happen for those three beautiful children with so much left to live, and their poor mother who sadly wasn't able to deal with the situation she was put in. R.I.P.
- The Most Celebrified Destruction That Isn't From Charlie Sheen: Nicolas Cage Arrested For Domestic Abuse
The matter was cleared up within a few days when both sides made up and admitted that zero physical violence was involved. Still, you can't help but feel that we now understand why this man is so crazy in his movies.
- The Best Concocted Solution: New British Brew Contains Viagara
Funny, several members of the 2011 White Sox have been drinking this beer for the past few weeks and have only been giving limp performance.
/grumpy fan
- The Scariest to Watch: Oregon Teen Stabs Himself to Death During Concert
Geez, I heard from people on the Internet that the man was killing it on stage...but not like this! Not like this!
/Probably going to hell, I know.
//Seriously, though, its a very sad story.
- The Most Disturbing: Oregon Mailman Caught Taking a Dump on Person's Lawn
Umm, do Oregonians know that they're supposed create some good national news stories at some point?
- The Strangest Move, or a The Smartest Move?: Chinese Government Bans Time Travel
If I didn't know any better, I'd say that this was a conspiracy to remove millions of potential dollars from the international box office for the third installment of the Bill and Ted series.
- The Most Important Switcheroo: David Patraeus Moved to Head of CIA While Leon Panneta Moved to Head of Pentagon
Because nothing beats the ol' reliable covert operations!
Reveal of the Month: President Barack Obama's Birth Certificate
You're move, Trump!
Really, Really Awkward Press Conference of the Month: Gloria Allred's Baseball Bat Used To Simulate Sex in Front of Children Press Conference
This is incredible. I'm just amazed that she demonstrated the sex act performed by the Atlanta Braves assistant coach for nearly a full minute, while also refusing to say "ass" because of some moral confliction. Just a thing of beauty, simple as that.
Music Video of the Month: "Beastie Boys- Fight For Your Right Revisited"
Hey, everybody, let's play America's new favorite game! It's called "name as many past and current stars of favorite TV and movie comedies!"
Person of the Month: NFL Fans At Radio City Music Hall During Round 1 of the 2011 Draft
for showing NFL commissioner Roger Goodell just how they really feel of the lockout, and (more importantly) his actions during the NFL lockout, this time without the protective shell that NFL writers like Mike Florio have been giving him before that faithful night. Seriously, watch this if you already haven't...
Mmm, mmmm! If that isn't the second sweetest sound ever recorded this year (behind the bullets and bombs fired at Osama Bin Laden's crappy million dollar mansion), than I don't what is. After all, Goodell is nothing more than a red-haired pawn for all 31 of those greedy owners, and I'm finally glad that people gave him the majority opinion of most educated football fans across the country. Bravo, NFL fans. BRA. F@CKIN. VO.
-Runner-ups: Barack Obama, Donald Trump, The British royal family, the Beastie Boys, Planned Parenthood, Steve Jobs, Gloria Allred
And that, my friends, is how April 2011 went down in the memory books. Once again, I sincerely apologize for waiting until mid-May to post this. Hopefully, the quality was good enough to make you forgive my delay. See ya later this week!
Sincerely,
Your pal: mj15
If you have any opinions on today's post, or if you just have any suggestions or
tips for my next blog entry, e-mail me at: mj1599@aol.com. Your e-mails are greatly appreciated.
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