Joe The Plumber

Well the combination of the debate and baseball completely derailed the blog tonight. There was basically nothing worth watching and then talking about. I could commit an hour to Our 27 Kids on Discovery Health. It would have killed me and no one would have read it.

Butt Sluts was on DirecTV channel 599 at 10p tonight, but that would have been $10 and perhaps a step too far for this blog...

Anyway, back tomorrow.

The Gift That Keeps On Giving

The Paris Hilton's My New BFF well isn't going to run dry anytime soon, so why not keep going back to it? I know I was supposed to review My Own Worst Enemy, I Tivo'd it but once again read other reviews and they say its good. Theres no fun in reviewing whats good so we'll go back to the show that helped me start this blog. And I don't mind doing it.

Episode 3 was probably the dumbest thus far. Paris has the BFFs go to Knott's Berry Farm to ride roller coasters and have pictures taken while doing it because if they can take a good picture on a roller coaster, they can look good dealing with waves of paparazzi. Or something. This is, of course, vital to picking out someone you want to be your friend. Its essentially the equivalent of what happened to Austin Millbarge and Emmit Fitzhume when they were made OIO.(I have really been on the hammer with references the last two days and I demand your admiration)

It basically goes without saying that Onch, the worst person in the history of reality television, had a huge problem with roller coasters. (s)He cried hysterically upon finding out and vomited for show three times throughout the episode. Its hard to find words for how much I hate him, it really is. It goes beyond regular hate, its so much deeper, I loathe him with every single atom that I am composed of.

First of all, look at him(that's him on the right, to the left is Chris Crocker of 'Leave Britney alone!' fame. Why these people were in the same room together and no one opened fire, I'll never know). Its easy to call my hatred homophobic, and he would, but it isn't. Regular gay people, even the ultra fabulous types are nothing like this. This guys act is preposterous. He knows hes on TV and is an over acting, over dramatic, unfunny, outrageously dressed, poxy little cunt and when you feel bad for Paris Hilton because she has to be around this asswipe, you're in uncharted territory on the hatred scale.

Now, four of the BFFs, Brittany, Sinsu, Bryan and Natasha get to join Paris on a trip to Japan for the Japanese VMAs. When they get there some harajuku girls give them $500 to get new clothes and tell them that two of them will be eliminated. Long story short, Bryan says nothing the whole trip and Sinsu gets shitfaced so they're both gone.

Meanwhile, back in Los Angeles, Onch mentions how he can do pedicures so Corrie makes a joke about it because Onch is Asian and Asians run basically every nail place in the country. This, to no ones surprise, sparks a race war. Zui, the biggest bitch on the planet starts the whole "I have to leave before I beat the shit out of this girl" act we see on every MTV reality show.

I hate Zui a lot. This is what she looks like. Do I really have to waste a paragraph discussing why shes the most foul, vile, detestable bag of wank on television? I don't think I do. Shes also naked on the internet for those interested, do a GIS for Zui. Its real gross.

Anyway, if you aren't watching, start. This show is awful, and I love it like you wouldn't believe.

Gah!

My head hurts, a lot. In fact, every time I go to type something I have this shock of horrible pain shoot into the front of my skull.

Yet here I am, 1:11am EST, telling you(and I mean that in the singular form, I'm sure its just one of you reading this) about The Pick-Up Artist 2.

And I do this for fun...

The show reintroduces us to the biggest tool on the planet, Mystery. I don't know how to describe him besides to say that he looks like this(I'm furious that I had to waste an outstanding Pschyonauts reference on a post no one will read. Here's an actual picture. GET IT!?). Anyway, he goes through life dressed like someone who presumably loves Rammstien, teaching greasy dudes how to hook up with girls and generally make everyone around them uncomfortable. It worked in season one, so why not do it again?

I should say though, credit where credits due, he makes it work. I can't emphasize enough how much he bothers me, and how unattractive he is, and yet, there's plenty of video evidence of him backing up his claim of being good at this. Fair play to him then. I'm saying alcohol plays a big part though.

Like last season, Matador is by his side, his wingman(I think they just say "wing", its cooler that way?) who looks like Dave Navarro, just a bigger or less of a prick. I haven't really decided, and I really hate Dave Navarro. And there's the girl Tara who would look better without her stupid bangs. Shes there to offer a female point of view, or something. Who cares?

Our contestants trying to become the next pick-up artist are as pathetic as ever. Rian is a 27 year old virgin, Simeon chooses to rock the ill advised polo/pajama pants/crocs trifecta, Karl works at Radioshack, Mark is hairy and gap toothed, Greg's voice cracks when he talks to girls, Brain is Asian, Kevin is also Asian and Alex is fat and assumed to be gay.

Rian is a special case as hes by far the most awkward person to ever be seen on television. He walks like he just shit his pants while lurching forward, as if hes been sucked into the gravitational pull of whatever hes walking towards. He wears a tshirt with an unfunny saying tucked into his jeans and is generally just embarrassing everyone around. While trying to pick out clothes during the makeovers he cried. Trying to dress up like a douchebag brought him to tears, yet he made the cut.

Alex, however, did not. Some girl grabbed his fake gaudy, ridiculous fake chain and he said nothing back to her and stood there looking like the sad sack he is. So he had to go.

I summed the end up pretty fast there. You might want to know more, but now isn't the time. Not with my headache. VH1 will replay it 4000 times tomorrow alone, its interesting, not good, but watch it. Its a cringe inducing good time and you might learn some pick up vocabulary.

"Two set"!

Mailing It In

The best way to endear yourself to the reader is just once you start to get them interested, say, six posts, you get them all excited about the Friday post about the bastardized NBC version of Australia's Kath & Kim and what do you come here and find? Nothing.

Nothing.

Now, allow me to explain why. I Tivo'd(Tivoed? Tivo'ed) it, and now I just can't bring myself to watch it because I made the mistake of reading other peoples reviews of it and now I feel like anything I write will be a complete replica of their smarted, better put together review.

I know you don't come here for serious reviews though, I lack the journalistic skills. As a matter of fact, what I do doesn't really resemble journalism or proper criticism at all. More a guerrilla attack on things that do a fine job of mocking themselves. No one beats a dead horse quite like I do(turning to cliches, another excellent example of mailing it in).

From this point I could go on a long rant involving a big horse metaphor that would probably get less funny with each word, or I could tell you that's what I thought about doing and didn't.

See how this works? Its great!

But for anyone who really wanted to read my thoughts on Kath & Kim, well, I have none. Based off what I've read it should be canceled. That takes all the pressure off when season 2 doesn't roll around.

We, well, I'll be back strong as ever on Monday. Do you doubt me? You shouldn't. The Pick-Up Artist 2 starts Sunday night. As for Tuesday, I'll be reviewing My Own Worst Enemy, which because it interferes with the ALCS, I'll have to watch it Tuesday morning. And if Christian Slater thinks I want to wake up to his in all likelyhood awful schizo spy show then, well, he just doesn't know me at all.

From The Trash Heap

My biggest help in all this, tvguide.com, has let me down. Do Not Disturb, the bound to be awful Jerry O'Connell/Niecy Nash shit fest, was supposed to be on. It wasn't. It was back to back episodes of the equally awful(presumably) 'Til Death.

So now what do I do besides get ready to hate Do Not Disturb 10x more than I would have when it finally does come on? I talk about whatever I find interesting that doesn't fit in any other post.


(UPDATE: It wasn't on because Fox has officially taken it off the schedule. Not cancelled, but close enough. I regret never getting to suffer through it.)

For starters, I'd like to discuss how much I despise all the new McDonalds commercials. Its been months of it really, so its hard to call them new. But they are the most unrealistic depictions of typical customers of any business on the planet. Everyone is dancing, dressed like The Jonas Brothers and lives in an apartment that looks like an Urban Outfitters. We've all been to McDonalds, we know the greasy truth.

Its insulting to everyone for McDonalds to suggest that your individuality can be defined by eating at literally the most common restaurant in the world. This is why Sonic has the most realistic fast food commercials ever. Ugly people telling bad jokes and stuffing their faces with chili cheese dogs trying to ignore the misery that they're attempting to drown in gallons of Fried Ice Cream Blast(delicious, by the way).

Is Burger King cooler now that "Diddy says BK is open late"? Not really. Though him getting fat really adds credibility to his endorsement.

And inspired by Poltergeist being mentioned on Its Always Sunny In Philadelphia last night, the new DirecTV commercial has to be brought up. A lot of people are up in arms about Heather O'Rourke("They're Here") being used in the ad seeing as she died in 1988 and was only 13 at the time. She was a young, adorable white girl so GOD FORBID her image ever be used in anything except talking about how she was a little angel, and shes probably sitting next to Jesus right now, discussing her appearances on Still the Beaver(aka Leave it to Beaver 2, which has 102 episodes, I don't know why).

Craig T. Nelson is okay with it, I'm okay with it.

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I also feel like I should do what I can to bring you some good TV that you may not have heard of.

That Mitchell and Webb Look is on BBC America and its the best sketch comedy show on television. Sadly, there aren't two many episodes and I'm not entirely sure that BBC America is playing it at the moment. But everything is on YouTube where I've watched most of it anyway. The creepiest example of their genius can be seen here.

The Real Housewives of Atlan...Ahh Who Cares? Who Cares?

Robert B. Millman, a psychiatry professor at Cornell, coined the term 'acquired situational narcissism' most likely never assuming that there would be such an excellent case study on the disorder as we see on The Real Housewives of Atlanta. Its defined here.

"ASN differs from conventional narcissism in that it develops after childhood and is triggered and supported by the celebrity-obsessed society: fans, assistants and tabloid media all play into the idea that the person really is vastly more important than other people, triggering a narcissistic problem that might have been only a tendency, or latent, and helping it to become a full-blown personality disorder."

Those words are embodied in these five women.

What we have here is essentially a blaxploitation version all the other Housewives shows except these women lack any redeeming qualities what so ever. None of them work and they all take extreme pride in the fact that their husbands, ex-husbands or mystery boyfriends all make millions of dollars that they can take.

DeShawn is married to Eric Snow of the Cleveland Cavaliers, Lisa is married to Ed Hartwell of the Atlanta Falcons who I don't think I've ever heard of, Sheree' is divorcing an NFL player she won't name and the odd one out is Nene. Her husband is just a real estate investor.

Credit to Nene for being the only one that's likeable. Not like really likeable, just sort of funny. Her and her husband also keep their feet on the ground, only giving their son $1000 for his birthday. Sure hes 9, but you know how kids want their Bentley's early these days.

The glory of this show is Kim, who can also be referred to as 'the white girl'. She says she doesn't feel white though, and that's why she loves living in Atlanta. She too is divorced, and is also the one with the afore mentioned mystery boyfriend. He is only referred to as 'Big Papa" and has chosen not to be shown on the show in a last gasp effort to retain dignity. We're assured hes a celebrity.

Shes the real life Carly Bobby. Well a cross between Carly Bobby and Sherri Ann Cabot from Best in Show. She informs us that her life basically revolves around designer labels and she wouldn't care if she died tomorrow because she'd 'die in Dior'. At least shes got her priorities straight.

This episode revolves around a party at Sheree's house. Its you're typical 'This party has to be perfect' My Super Sweet Sixteen nonsense with a $1200 cake and valet parking. Everyone makes a big deal about what they'll wear, Kim shows up looking like an expensive, yet middle aged escort and the big shock of the episode is that Nene isn't on the guest list.

I know, I couldn't believe it either.

Sheree's assistant apologizes profusely but to no avail and none of this really matters at all because you don't care, or shouldn't.

Bravo has supplied us with some gold over the years, this doesn't make the cut. It isn't even something you can watch just to hate. I watched My New BFF last night even though i didn't have to for the blog. Why? Because someone might punch Onch in the throat. I hate that show enough to keep coming back.

I'll have to develop a hate scale where I can clearly illustrate where it crosses the line from 'shitty but I love it' to 'I hope everyone on this show dies'.

Hmm. Next time...

CBS Lets Me Down In New Ways

Without question, Worst Week on CBS is obviously Meet the Parents: The Rip-off. Now, this show(like every show) is a remake of a vastly superior British version(not you, The Office. You're fine), but even that show started in 2004 and I know they'd seen the movie. He res the plot, A man visits his girlfriends parents house and hopes to ask their permission to marry her.

Ground breaking, I know. But there's more.

The father is a hard ass! That's incredible. They should get Robert DeNiro to play him!

But they wound up with a very worthy second choice, Kurtwood Smith, who is still just playing Red Forman. There is a bit of a twist here in that Sam Briggs'(Kyle Bornheimer) girlfriend Melanie(played by Erinn Hayes) is pregnant. This doesn't really make that big of a difference in the grand scale of things.

But here is the disappointing thing, despite the tired formula the show is remarkably tolerable. I'm not going to keep watching it, but if someone were to say it was their favorite show I wouldn't immediately discount every opinion they've ever had, like if they say they love Yes, Dear.

CBS specializes in lowest common denominator trash like Two and A Half Men so its refreshing to see something reasonable. I know that Two and A Half Men has been the number one comedy on TV since Everybody Loves Raymond went off air but I don't care. I hate that show and more importantly I hate post-1994 Charlie Sheen.

So Sadly we've had three straight posts with decent or better shows. I can only spew so much vitriol when I don't hate something with every fiber of my being. But don't worry, I'm watching Real Housewives of Atlanta next...

Monday Ramblings

I specialize in abject failure, let last night be no exception. I failed to watch or Tivo anything reviewable. The Angels/Red Sox game took 5 and a half hours and that was pretty much my night.

However, I did get to see Little Britain USA and The Life and Times of Tim on HBO West around 1:30 this morning. Its the second episode of both so a lot has probably already been said of them already, but then again, how is one man expected to catch the premier of every new show of the fall season? Have you seen either of these shows? I say unlikely.

I'll start with The Life and Times of Tim, which as it turns out, is much better than all the promos have made it seem. It comes across as an animated Curb Your Enthusiasm/cringe humor type show but the situations are more outrageous and are even less likely to happen in real life. For example, in last nights episode Tim is asked by his boss to refer to himself as Tim Sanchez because there aren't enough Latinos in upper management with predictable yet genuinely funny results.

It has its weak spots. Sometimes Tim's deadpan just doesn't work and the jokes fall flat, and there was a NAMBLA joke(in this case Newly Appointed Minority Business Leaders of America) that was unnecessary not because its inappropriate, but because South Park really cornered the market with NABMLA jokes years ago. Overall its definitely worth watching, the only problem is its on after Little Britain USA.

Which brings us to that.

I don't hate Little Britain, it has its clever moments, but its far too reliant on crudeness for laughs from two guys who are actually really funny. David Walliams and Matt Lucas are good writers but a lot of it seems to go to waste on naked, disgusting characters. Too much is based on easy stereotypes and dick jokes.

Where it excels is just how hilarious everyone looks. The make-up and great British tradition of cross dressing shines here, but you just wish they'd keep the costumes on. The show has been a huge hit in England for years and I think it translates well for the American audience but i don't think its found its niche on HBO.

Random Episode: Destroyed in Seconds

This blog will mostly be dedicated to bad or presumably bad television so I'm taking this opportunity to watch something enjoyable. It might be enjoyable on the most basic levels, but we've all got some blood lust, so far be it from me to turn away from the occasionally literal train wreck, Discovery Channels Destroyed in Seconds.

The title paints a pretty clear picture of what you'll get to see. Incredible explosions, buildings collapsing, and well meaning recklessness ending in the worst way possible. This show does what a dumber show, Maximum Exposure, doesn't show and that's actual death. Morbid Curiosity ensures that you don't turn away when a crane collapses into a water tower and throws a man 250 some odd feet to his untimely demise.

Our host is Ron Pitts, who you may know from Fox's NFL coverage and his cameo in Hot Shots: Part Deux!. Hes a step up from the extremely annoying Cam Brainard on Max-X, who is made more irritating as hes credited as 'Smart Aleck Announcer Dude' which is the most vomit inducing credit you'll ever see. Destroyed in Seconds lacks the campy comments and slapstick sound effects Max-X had and that's appreciated more than anything.

The show has some great moments of comedy though, surprisingly after a plane crash in the episode i was watching. Two Russian pilots had a mid-air collision, they both ejected safely and one of them, before checking on the wreckage, before checking on his partner, he lights a cigarette. Proof that nicotine is a great stress reliever once more.

So if you want to enjoy a lot of explosions and a lot of mindless fun but don't want Nicholas Cage to be involved, Destroyed in Seconds is the way to go. Consider this a stamp of approval. I have no catch phrase...yet.

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I also wanted to talk about whats going on with this blog, something of a mission statement. I'm reviewing something I haven't seen before of think will be extremely stupid Sunday night through Thursday night every week and posting basically 5 days a week.

There wasn't a post yesterday because i was locked out of the blog because Blogspot thought my Paris Hilton review looked like spam. A rough start but I'm back and will be posting late Sunday night/Monday. Its okay because it got me out of watching the Americas Got Talent finale. I don't know who won. I don't care.

I still don't know what to watch Sunday night, it might be Iron Chef America. If you don't want to read about it(I don't want to write about it), I'm taking suggestions.