So Happy It's Thursday

There was an article in the Journal the other day that quoted a source who mentioned something about "all this sh*t", except it wasn't as cleverly censored as I have it here.  This caught Kathryn and I off guard - is it okay to print that now?  I know that newspapers are written in a grade 3 - 8 level (depending on what source you believe) - and I guess, to most grade 8 kids, that's just about the only language they know... (but I digress).

Then we reflected that Strombo and guests quite often use the word, un-bleeped on his show.  Of course, it runs at 11 pm, which is waaay past the watershed.  (P.S. good on Canada for giving us an extra hour of nudity and coarse language a day over the US).

That night, we watched Being Erica, another Canadian TV show (which, by the way, is pretty good for CanCon, except the episodes where they drive in their new Ford Fiestas right before cutting to a commercial for the car).  They used the word twice (!) in one episode. I tried to find some decision by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council indicating that you're now allowed to broadcast / print the word - but couldn't find much.

Not that I'm really complaining - we watch a lot of HBO shows, where really, anything goes.  Also, do you remember when Dr. Greene died on ER, and how momentous it was that he swore during that episode?  Oh memory lane...

Maybe the Canadian media producers are taking Lindsay Blackett's quote about Canadian TV being sh*t out of context.

Buy our product!

So, we actually watched some TV last week that had commercials in it (you can make your own guesses as to where our TV normally comes from).

I realized that there's a style of commercials that really drives me nuts.  It's those ones where you have a person saying a part of a sentence, and then it cuts to a different person who finishes the sentence.  Case in point is the ad for Ford (I think) that has this Microsoft-powered gizmo that can connect your electronic crap to your car.  "I can read email" ... "from my grandmother"  (author's note - quotes may or may not actually appear in the commercial).  The "climax" of the ad is when a bunch of people say the same word at the end of the sentence:  "It's like"... "magic" ... "magic" .... "MAGIC" ... "CAN YOU BELIEVE THE EFFING MAGIC GOING ON HERE???"

But on the positive side, one thing I love about commercials is when the same actor is in commercials for different products.  This is even better when both commercials air in the same commercial break.  My current favourite is the poor dude in the Benylin ad who's taking a sick day.  First off, he's clearly the one they make fun of at work, because he's average looking, whereas his co-workers are sharp-suit-wearers with perfect hair.  They call him to harass him at home instead of looking for the file on the network drive, like any normal person would do.

Next up, he's in a Scotiabank ad where he's much richer than he thinks.  Can't remember the details of this ad, except he does a really lame clap-like hand action at the end.

The reason I like when this happens is that I can make up my own backstory that links the commercials together.  I think this poor dude was drowning in debt, working 80 hours a week to support his addiction to aerosol cheese products.  He gets a hard time at work from his more attractive colleagues, and then a hard time at home because of the mountain of bills.  His wife books an appointment with the bank so they can address their debt, but he can't take the time off work.  So, he fakes being sick, pretends to suck back the Benylin, then heads to the bank with his wife.  It all works out in the end, because the banker finds money for him to enter rehab for his cheese-huffing problem.  Also, while he was at the bank, a disgruntled former employee goes on a killing spree in his office, picking out those who don't know about the network drive.

Maybe I need something better to do with my time.  Pass the EZ-Cheez.

News banter

One thing that annoys me is news anchor banter to fill up the dead air at the end of a broadcast. Actually, I find it funny, especially if you watch it while thinking that the anchors hate eachother, but are forced to be nice on camera.

Anyway, last night, we caught the end of the CBC Edmonton news, and their feel-good story was about some people in Sweeden who made a life-size statue of Jesus out of Lego. At the end of the story, one of the anchors says "I'm sure that Jesus would love it".

I almost fell out of bed laughing....

On that vein, I wasted some time on youtube today watching news bloopers. Here are two of my favourites:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0eINGyJHz8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6IvsSyhCaM

Reverse!

There are three things that cause me stress for no rational reason:

1) Being backed up in the laundry
2) Having un-read newspapers (being backed up in the newspaper reading department)
3) Being backed up in TV watching.

The three came together in perfect storm formation a few weeks ago when we went to visit my sisters in Calgary, and then spent a night in Kananaskis. The trimvirate of backed up things was terrible.

The good news is that I finally finished #1 last night - there is not a single load of laundry left to do in my house - a condition that will last for about a day (sadly).

I was caught up on #2, but I haven't read today's paper yet.

As for #3 - don't even ask... as a sign that we watch too much TV, I think we have 10.5 hours of recorded TV that we need to watch to catch up to last night. (D'oh!)... it's mostly because we've been wasting our nights reading Twilight to eachother (and now New Moon) - instead of just turning on the TV.

By the way, I've added some more photos to Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=87609&l=af622&id=679030785

Does the horse get the medal?

Ok, so I am basically addicted to the Olympics. All of our copious TV watching in the past week has been basically all Olympics all the time. Which is OK, since CBC has pre-empted Coronation Street. (maybe Corrie will be the subject of a future post).

Anyway - there are a few things that I've thought about a lot while watching... and they are (in no particular order):

I am amazed and surprised that Galen Weston can speak French. We were watching Radio-Canada since the French channel often has better coverage than the English CBC. Along came the standard President's Choice commercial, and there was Mr. President (of brand-name fame) giving his speal about organic foods all in French. Kudos to you Mr. Weston. Which leads to a small digression - why is the No-Name brand at Superstore trademarked?

Speaking of French - what will happen in 2010 when CTV takes over the Olympic coverage? Last time I checked, there was no CTV-affiliated French channel - at least not on the grainy, no-cable TV that we get. At least the English coverage will have Brian Williams - I've missed his rants about the judging. Ian Hanomansowhatshisname is just not as entertaining.

And more on commercials - the Tostadas "recipe" (notice the quotes) commercials are lame. Here's a recipe - open the bag of chips, pour them in a bowl. Open the dip. Whoopeee!


What is up with Show Jumping? It appears to me that the horse does all the hard work. Case in point - the Canadian silver medal-winning team has a competitor in his ninth (yes ninth!) Olympics! To boot, he qualified for 10 games, but because of the '84 boycott, he didn't attend. Also, he might have missed one because of the Great Depression. In my mind, any event in which a septuagenarian can compete is not a real Olympic sport.

Along the same lines - what's the deal with BMX? (Or, as my friends on Radio-Canada put it, "le p'tit bicycle") This is like "the totally rad, super-awesome, X-Olympics games". Why not also include Ultimate Frisbee, or hackeysack? There's a good crowd of scofflaw ultimate players who play on the field by my house... next time I see them, I'll ask if they're gunning for London in 2012.

Other Olympic sports that bug me:

Modern Pentathlon - which is based on what a modern soldier needs to do behind enemy lines - sword fighting, pistol shooting, running, swimming and (yes, this event is doubly-cursed) - horse riding.

Base/Softball - I am sooo glad that they're dropping this after 2008. I have other issues with baseball as a major-league sport anyway - what kind of sport encourages chewing tobacco while playing???

Beach volleyball - one of the major reasons why we watch the French channel so often. It seems that the CBC looooves beach volleyball - considering that it is ALWAYS ON!

And my most favourite Olympic sport? It has to be the steeplechase. This is like horse jumping redeemed. Take the horse course, and remove the horse - wackiness ensues!

It's what plants crave

What is the deal with yogurt?

Why is every second ad on the three channels we get about how great yogurt is for you... It makes me wonder - did yogurt always have all these great ingredients, and there's just recently been a focus on how good they are for you, or are yogurt makers (the dairy conspiracy) adding extra bacterial agents to an already bacteria-filled stew, and also - can this sentence get any longer?

I love the commercials that say "this yogurt is the only one with ProActivo (TM)"... isn't that the point of a trademark?

I'm waiting to buy yogurt until there's one with electrolytes.

When the dog bites...

Here's a quick list of things that annoy me:

Payless Shoes BoGo ads. To me, BoGo means buy one, get one free - not some lame buy one get one at half price.

The commercials with that strange British woman and her coven of housewives who talk about amazing cleaning products - there's so much wrong with those ads.

People who ride bikes when there's snow on the ground. In fact, let's pull out all the stops and say bikes on the road in general are annoying.

A Harpo Production

So, we've been watching Oprah's Big Give - and I don't really know what to make of the show. For those who haven't heard of it, Oprah picked a dozen or so A-types and challenges them each week with tasks to give away money to those in need. The motto for the show is "Give big, or go home".

I'm not sure if this show is meant to be an inspiration for all of us to find the "big giver" inside of us, and to emulate what we see in our own lives, or if it's just a slightly different take on the standard reality show genre.

Take this week's show, for example. One of the teams managed to raise a ludicrous amount of money, and had a playground built for a school in four days - two of which were a weekend. Emily's school is trying to raise somewhere between ten and twenty thousand for a playground. Once the money's raised, I'm sure that the contractors will have no problem working over the weekend to have the thing built in a day.

What the editing of the show doesn't let on is the amount of times Oprah's name must get dropped while they solicit donations. I'm sure that it's really easy to get toys donated to homeless kids when you tell the company that they'll be on an Oprah show.

The show's promotion indicated that the competitive format (i.e., reality show) was chosen because it will inspire the participants to really work hard to beat the other people. I'm not too sure what this says about human nature - that we can only be inspired to be charitable when we can stick it to another person?

In any event, the newness of the challenge has worn off for the competitors, and the inevitable politics and cattiness has set in (and they don't even have to blame a meal of soggy rice and sleeping in the rain for it!) The show focused a lot on the conflicts within the team this week - and I suspect that things will just go downhill over the next few weeks. Because really, people don't watch shows like this for the uplifting inspiration of giving - it's more about which contestant will be the Omarosa, and how much can we hate him/her before they get voted off the island (so to speak).

What I do enjoy about this show is that, despite her image makeover, Oprah is really getting back to her roots in daytime television by pandering to the basic audience that loves to see other people fight. We love to rubberneck at the train wrecks these people's lives turn into. Since her own talk show is devoted now to Dr. Oz, or how Oprah feels about a celebrity's latest movie / tv show / book (let's face it - how much do Oprah's guests talk anymore - it seems to be all about Oprah), she must really be feeling a void deep down that can only be filled by the kind of TV content that she started, and Jerry Springer perfected.

I will continue to watch, however, because I'm so easily addicted to new shows!