Thesis: MTV should make music videos freely available

Does anyone watch MTV for music videos anymore? Can you even see them on MTV? They can't sell you albums if you never see them. And shows like TRL (which I don't think is even on the air anymore) relied on people knowing what videos they wanted to see before they called in. MTV ought to just make it all available online, like a Hulu for music videos. It can't possibly hurt viewership and it would sell more albums (if videos have ever had that effect). I'm sure the music industry would hate it and want royalties, but the networks have their own man-eating lawyers. Plus, you know they'd have ads and banners like everyone else, so they'd make more ad revenue that way. It would also give new bands a chance at a larger audience, the way MTV used to at its inception. When it played music.

On Science and TV

TV and science have a rocky relationship. They love each other, but they don't really understand each other. Or rather, TV loves science with zero understanding of how it functions, much like the unworldly spinster and one Mr. Liberace. Oh sure, he's sparkly and glamorous, talented and good to his mother, but ladies: he's gay and he's passed on; he can never love you back and you are never going to have a little cottage together on the beach in Malibu. TV sits up at night drawing hearts around pictures of beakers and diagrams of atoms. It writes Mrs. T. V. Science on all its peechees in elaborate cursive.

But I digress... TV shows seem invariably drawn towards the scientific, and to my way of thinking, they are better when they recognize and accept that their love can never be and just shrug it off with a "yeah, but what if..." and a wistful smile. For example:

Star Trek.
How does warp speed work?
Crystals. It's science!

The X-Files.
How come things are unexplained in the world and mysterious?
Aliens. It's science!
(What's with the weird guy who ate you and then barfed you into an underground man-mould?
Uh, Indian folk magic? Look, we're just enjoying ourselves here.)

Heroes. (Okay- I only saw season 1. Maybe they have fucked it up. I don't know.)
What's with the super powers?
What do you want from us- they're super powers.

Star Wars & Firefly.
So, spaceships, eh? Laser guns? Chinese and English in the same sentence?
Time out of mind! The distant past, the distant future and far far away.

Law & Order.
Forensics, that's got beakers and stuff, right?
We're only civil servants! It takes weeks, nay, months!, to get results on this stuff. We don't need to understand it, we just need to do our due diligence. Hey- look at that shouty guy over there!

These programs accept that they are entertainment. People don't watch Firefly to learn how spaceships fly; they watch because it's awesome. They don't watch Law & Order because they want a lesson on Watson and Crick; they want a police procedural. (Don't worry, I'm getting to CSI: Branson.)

What was great about the X-Files, I have come to realize, was that half the time Mulder just shrugged and grinned his goofy half-grin at whomever he was with, as if to say, "I know, right? Crazy times!" The other half of the time Mulder burst into a room, shouting, "Scully! I have an insane conspiracy theory about alien technologies or something!" And Scully would do an awesome Leela impression ("Oh lord, he's made of wood"), her hand on her brow as she looked at the floor, gathering strength to soldier on.

One of my favorite scenes in Star Trek was in one of the movies, the one where they travel back in time, and the doctor is in a hospital. He passes a guy on a stretcher, checks his chart while he surreptitiously scans him. When he looks at the chart and his tricorder or whathaveyou, you exclaims, "My god, the barbarians!" because they're going to remove the patient's kidney or something. I think he says, "I can cure him!" and zaps him with his Future Technology and like magic, er, I mean, science, the man is cured! Yay! No one pauses to explain how it theoretically works. It's a grey box. It has a red light and a touch screen. It makes noises. You point it at a guy and push the screen to make the noises and it fixes the guy. SCIENCE!

But not everyone is the cool girl at the party who just kind of hangs by the tin tub full of melting ice and light beer looking awesome in her skinny jeans and old concert t-shirt saying, "What's up" to everyone who passes by, laughing at jokes, just, like, being cool. Someone has to be the over-eager girl at the front door putting everyone's jacket on the bed in the guest room, laughing too loudly so everyone knows she's having a good time, doing one shot after much preamble and immediately vomiting into the kitchen garbage can. That girl is the show whose entire season I recently watched on Hulu. That girl is Fringe. Fringe has carefully coordinated her headband, belt and socks without noticing that she is a bald double-amputee in sansabelt pants. Fringe practices opening conversational salvos in the mirror before going out only to overwhelm strangers with stories about her dead cat ("ohmygodMittensItwassosad") told in a rushed, overloud voice. You can't dislike her because she's trying so hard. But the closest you can get to liking her is pity, and that makes you feel kind of icky.

Fringe spends about a quarter of each episode providing "plausible" explanations for how its "science" works. This is a terrible mistake because it's all so easy to understand and therefore feels, well, unscientific. (On a related note: part of how ER sounds authentic to the layman is the amount of jargon they use in the "medical" parts of the show. You're not meant to understand it. You're supposed to just let it wash over you, a wave of medicalese to set the mood.) Fringe insists on explaining things in words I know, which really takes away from the authenticity (for lack of a better word) because I'm pretty sure I don't understand advanced genetics, biochemistry and physics.

In a recent episode, one of the characters asks, "Tell me: did the creature have the arms of a tiger, the body of a scorpion and the tail of a rattlesnake?" He later exclaims, "Bat DNA! Of course! That was the missing ingredient." Um, right. I know they're going to glibness-in-the-face-of-incredible-weirdness as their attempt at The Cool Girl, but it just comes off like a poor imitation. (Oh Lord, she's put on her Osmunds t-shirt.) Fringe would be so much better if it took a page from the X-Files and used that time for character development and to generate an atmosphere. J J Abrams: more shrugging, less fakey science.

The sad thing is, like CSI: Frankfort, Explaining The Science is part of the salespitch. The difference is that CSI: knows what its audience wants, namely ballistic gel and mood lighting. I don't get the impression that it thinks its a great police procedural ("Yes, let the CSIs make the arrest! They're all armed and go in for busts all the time!") or even much of a mystery show ("Huh, you say he was holding the gun and confessed to firing it? I dunno guys, sounds like a real poser!"). It is a showcase for Future Technology and lighting design and it seems happy with that. (CSI: Miami, of course, is a showcase for David Caruso's mad standing-at-an-angle skills and Khandi Alexander's awesome cleavage, if little else. Personally, I can't watch either show and I refuse to acknowledge the existence of NCIS and CIS: Big Apple. But that is neither here nor there.)

Fringe doesn't seem to know what its audience wants. Sometimes it thinks the viewer wants to know how the actual molecular reactions work. But then it gets bored (and also, it doesn't know what it's talking about anyway) and so then it thinks the viewer wants Action. There is a flurry of activity where people can travel across the country in a single hour, where there is always interagency cooperation and no one ever asks the protagonist about her crazy diction (what is up with Anna Torv's accent?). No, no, the people want to see monsters! Enter the bad CGI... Now maybe a love interest? No, no they're just friends. (Another digression: there was one moment between Anna Torv and Joshua Jackson, of Dawson's Creek fame, where, to comfort her -as a friend, mind you- he reaches out cups her face in hand, running his fingers into her hair and then drawing her to him to hold her while she weeps (? I don't know-maybe she was just sleepy). I tried to imagine one of my friends doing this and all I could see was a Craft Night gone horribly, hilariously wrong. I tried to imagine two friends of the same gender touching each other like that. Nope: that move is for lovers only, guys.

But back to the science thing. I'm really kind of disappointed. How is it possible that writers and TV producers don't get that you don't have to explain every goddamn thing?

Star Trek, how do your transporters work?
They break you down into your constituent parts and then reassemble you somewhere else.
No, really: how do they work?
It's future science! Just climb right in- it's awesome and it works every time, except for that time we beamed Spock half way into a rock and Bones had to build him a bionic ass. But that at least was funny!

Fringe, how does teleportation work?
Well, you see, you break the object or person down into is constituent parts and then reassemble it somewhere else. There is this ring-thingy that you have to build on the receiving end of the process, but not on the starting end. Did we mention this is advanced Quantum Physics? Yeah, it totally is. Real bleeding edge. But the object being teleported gets a large dose of radiation, so if it's a person, they better wear gloves and sunscreen!
No, really: how... wait, what? Sunscreen protects you from radiation when you're broken down into a bunch of molecules? That doesn't make sense!
Uh oh... Cheese it!

Is it to make up for not having enough plot? For having wooden actors? (Or in Joshua Jackson's case, actors who somehow manage to make bedroom eyes in every scene regardless of what's going on.) Does Fringe think its "science" gives it a veneer of legitimacy? Because it's like calling a ratty old Osmunds t-shirt "My Rock'n'Roll Shirt." I don't think Fringe could be saved from being so-so at best even with a She's All That nerd-to-hot-chick makeover. (And not just because the "nerd" in that scenario was acutally a hot chick with glasses and a pony tail.) I keep watching it because I don't really have to pay attention, so I can knit at the same time, and I can watch it on my computer when Pete is watching endless basketball. And I don't find it unbearable. I mean, it's not Two and a Half Men or anything. But good lord it makes the tiny, atrophied fraction of my brain that was been devoted to studies loosely labeled "science" cringe.

Scientific exegesis of Nostradamus is not *actually* science. Sorry, History Channel.

I'm watching this show on the History channel right now - mostly because Pete teasingly suggested it and I had to call his bluff - and it is, well, silly. That is really the best word for it. It is chock-a-block with "scholars" talking about scientific interpretations of Nostradamus' quatrains. Seriously. Men who have trained in real sciences (yes - only men) are using their understanding of nuclear and cosmic radiation to explain... Nostradamus. Their justification is that Isaac Newton believed in alchemy and prophesy. Yes - and he also believed that leeches were a valid treatment for disease. Time and place, Scientists! Time and place!

The problem with this kind of "science" is that it's all predicated upon a completely ridiculous supposition: that Nostradamus could predict the future. He predicted Sadaam, you know. Here is their evidence. Quatrain 8:70.

He will enter, wicked, unpleasant, infamous,
tyrannizing over Mesopotamia.
All friends made by the adulterous lady,
the land dreadful and black of aspect.

Okay, that is not even English. That does not make any kind of grammatical sense. Here is the French.

Il entrera vilain, mechant, infame
Tyrannisant la Mesopotamie,
Tous amis fait d'adulterine d'ame,
Terre horrible, noir de phisonomie.

Admittedly, my French is a wee rusty, but I believe that "dame" is "lady" and "d'ame" is "of soul." I read this more as "He/It will enter ugly, mean, infamous / Tyrannizing Mesopotamia / All friends made by the bastard of soul / horrible earth, black physiognomy." It is interesting to note this definition of "physiognomy" from the wiktionary: "The art of telling fortunes by inspection of the features." I this this is really about a soul singer turned fortune teller who is good at neither avocation. But I digress.

Has there ever been a time when human beings didn't think the apocalypse was right around the corner? No. There has never been such a time. This program is looking for concordance between the Mayan End of Days Calendar, Hopi folk tales and a the poetry of a 16th century French pharmacist. Oh, and the Bible Code. The answer is: The world will end in 2012. Well, the Hopi say that the Fifth Age will begin in 2012. I say, "Fair enough, Hopi." To the rest of them, though, I can say only this: you are not doing science! Please stop pretending that's what you're up to!

I know what you are thinking: why keep watching if it is so ridiculous? Well, it's on the HD History Channel and it has all these gorgeous images of space (you know - predictions and cosmic rays all come from constellations). And now that it's muted, it's way less irritating.

Pete's take: "It's a stretch for being history, too." Maybe they should call it "pre-history" or "peri-history." Or, you know, "bull shit."

Okay, it just ended with shots of Portland and a guy saying something about "when new Rome fell." Um, hello? We're Little Beirut? Geez - it's like he's totally out of touch with the world or something.

Mixed Messages (Sorry this is crazy long - I suck at the whole brevity thing)

Last night I watched a couple hours of TLC: first, a show on what happened to two girls who were once in child pageants called "Painted Babies at 17;" and second, "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant."

I meant to mention the first one only in passing - child pageants are creepy - but there's actually a little more to it than that. One of the girls has continuously competed in pageants since age 5 and has won tens of thousand of dollars will no discernible skills other than keeping a plastic smile pasted on her face while being serenaded by a very weird pageant MC. The other quit pageants at 7, goes to an expensive boarding school and works for minimum wage at a local buffet diner in Appalachia. At first I thought the point was going to be that the girl who quit is better adjusted and is focusing on a real future (career as a tv news anchor), while the other wants to get married and have a big family. (She also had some career aspiration, but I forget what. I remember thinking it was something like Medical Assistant, which I think of as a career you have to make money on your way to something else, not something you dream of being at 17.)

As the program progressed, they began to reveal more about the circumstances in which the two girls find themselves. The one who quit didn't just up and quit out of the blue at 7 after winning thousands of dollars and a car with more than 20 titles: her little brother was born with disabilities and her mom didn't have time to devote to pageanting any more. Although they never say it (BBC4 is too subtle for that), the clear message is: "Baby pageants are driven by the mothers and that's all there is to it. Little girls would never choose to do this on their own." The girl who continued in pageants, meanwhile, did so with the support and participation of both parents until she was 15, when her parents divorced. At least that's how they described it in the beginning. Later they gave more detail. Her father, Boo (no - I'm not making that up), just walked out on his wife and seven children one day and 10 months later married some other woman. They ask her if she misses him, if she ever sees him, if it's hard. It's all very tasteful and non-exploitative. And then explaining why she doesn't see her dad, she says, "Well, the state took out a restraining order on him, so..." The interviewer asks something and she says, "Oh, it was real bad, he was real abusive mentally... emotionally... physically..." She kind of swallows the last adverb and her grandmother swoops in with, "He was a real bad sort." Or something along those lines.

I think this is interesting because there didn't seem to be a clear message any more by the end of the program. At the beginning, I would have said that the theme was "pageants are bad for little girls, they're creepy, and they turn Moms into raving lunatics." By the middle, it seemed to have moved to "Pageants may be creepy, but they make bank, and if you're a poor family with seven kids, having one or two little beauty queens might be your best bet for a new car." It was sympathetic. By the end, though, it painted both girls as victims of circumstance. Certainly one has a brighter future, with real world goals. One could argue that she was either saved or robbed by her brother's disabilities. The other girl, though... It seemed to conclude that she was a survivor and this was what she knew how to do. She's burdened by family obligations, she had an abusive dad who ran off and this is how she's dealing with her emotional scars. So, are pageants creepy? Yes. But maybe that's not the worst thing you have to deal with?

The other program, "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant," is about women who didn't know they were pregnant until they went into labor. It had some serious message problems. They make a big deal over the fact that none of these women had any prenatal care. "And without prenatal care, she may have endangered her baby's life without even realizing it." Well, duh. She didn't know there was a baby, guys. And I think this is an important message. (Prenatal care: it's good for fetuses.)

But they also make a big deal about the fact that all of these women went into labor at home (again: duh, they didn't know they were pregnant). The message is, "Babies will die if they are not born in a hospital. With an OB. With a mother lying supine, in a hospital gown. Seriously, without these things babies cannot be born and survive." I think this point of view is totally misleading. The risk in these pregnancies was not because they didn't arrive at the hospital until late in their trial of labor; the risk is that they didn't know they were pregnant and thought they were dying of tumors or organ rupture or something. Additionally, no mention is made of the fact that all five women profiled were overweight. Well, one of them has "obesity" described as a risk factor for her pregnancy. But it seemed like maybe it was worth mentioning for all of them. Perhaps I'm just judgemental, but if we're going to talk about risks and pregnancy, I think obesity (and it's BFFs "hypertension" and "gestational diabetes") would figure high on the list.

Where does the message get mixed?, you may be wondering. Okay, all this talk about risk risk risk. But for each woman, they say, "Luckily, she quit taking birth control and never drank or smoked throughout her pregnancy." Only one woman delivers prematurely; she has twins at 30 weeks. That's very early (by about 10 weeks), but after lung development. And twins are often born prematurely (although not necessarily that prematurely). So over the course of the show they build a profile of a risky pregnancy for you: no prenatal care, labor outside a hospital. And then they totally undermine it by only showing healthy, happy resulting families.

What really got me was that at the end of the show. There's a title card that says "In loving memory of..." someone, but went by too quickly for me to read. So I rewound and paused. It was in loving memory of one of the premature twins. !! So one of these pregnancies did not have a happy outcome; one of those poor twins died less that three months after her traumatic birth. Here is your message about the importance of prenatal care, TLC! Here is your example of why you should take care of yourself, keep your weight and blood pressure under control! And all that poor baby gets is passing mention because, well, it's a downer.

Anyway, while I thought both programs were interesting, I think maybe not for the reasons intended. Both shows were produced ostensibly to be both educational and a little sensational. Fine - prenatal care good; baby pageants bad. But it was like they lost their nerve about 2/3 of the way through. Uh, prenatal care good, but, um, nothing bad ever happens to babies. Baby pageants bad, but, erm, we guess they're better than developmental disabilities and child abuse. Unless they are a form of child abuse. LALAlalalalala - I can't hear you!

Is this a symptom of something larger growing in our culture? News outlets seem to have a hard time with issues that really only have one perspective. "Human trafficking: we know the sex slaves hate it, but how do the pimps and coyotes feel?" No! There is only one perspective on this. Human trafficking: it's really bad. And also illegal. And immoral. That is the perspective. Are we now pulling punches on educational programming as well? Where does this take us? Today we have High Risk Pregnancies With Zero Risk Outcomes - Don't Worry, Careless Ladies: Evidently You Have Nothing To Fear. And tomorrow? STDs: Maybe They Suck, or Maybe You Love Having Sores On Your Genitals, We Really Couldn't Say. Sometimes things have unhappy endings. Sometimes things are bad and they make you feel sad. But that's part of life. Maybe we should bring back all the old fairy tales where children are lured into the woods and eaten because they ignored their parents, but update them for the issues we face now. I will leave you with my attempt. Keep in mind, I'm going for pastiche here. Terms like "fetal alcohol syndrome" and "hip dysplasia" don't really fit the rhythm.

Blue Belle and The Unrecognized Pregnancy

There once was a girl named Blue Belle, for her eyes were the loveliest shade of sky blue. She was well loved and indulged in her every desire by everyone throughout her young life. But as she blossomed into the flower of womanhood, she found her desires had grown beyond the healthful norm and she suffered for it.

First, she grew overlarge as she indulged in great quantities of food and drink. "More wine!" she called. "More mutton! More pies!" But never more vegetables; never more fruit. The old village wise woman clucked her tongue and said, "You should eat rich treats in moderation, my girl! They'll poison you from the inside if you don't!" But Belle just laughed her tinkling laugh and shouted for more beer.

When food and drink began to bore her, she began to crave entertainment. "More shows! More performers!" she cried from her couch. And no one could deny those sparkling blue eyes, that gay and ringing voice, those perfect smiling lips. Except the old wise woman, who again admonished: "You should get up and see the world for yourself. Go out into it - explore, meet new people, make your own entertainment. If you don't, your world will be very small indeed and you'll never quite fit in it." But Blue Belle just shushed her as the next performance began.

And when she had seen every show, witnessed every performance, she found that she was filled with lust, especially for one man against whom she had been warned by every other woman in the village. She took up with this young man, covered in tattoos, coarse of language, boorish and uneducated, and for a time they were very happy. They drank and ate and smoked and made love together day in, day out. The old wise woman shouted up to her window, "He's made you no promises, nor you him! Without commitment there can be no real trust - only foolish blindness!" Blue Belle simply shut the windows and drew the curtains.

Eventually Blue Belle began to notice that she was missing her womanly cycles. "No matter," said she. "I am very anxious about life. Where will I find more entertainment? Who will bring me a delicious pie? Where is my beer? Why does everyone whisper about me behind my back?"

For the better part of a year Blue Belle lived this way, until one day her anxiety seemed to take root in her back and belly and began to rip through her in waves of nauseous pain. "Oh, oh! I am rent in twain!" she cried. Her tattooed beau ran for the doctor who attended her posthaste. After seeing the condition Blue Belle was in, and knowing of her habits and her past, he sent for the village midwife.

Upon her arrival, the midwife smiled down at the pained and crumpled Blue Belle and told her the happy news. "You are not being rent in twain! You're having a baby!" Blue Belle's eyes sparkled with momentary relief, and then grew dull with renewed anxiety. "But I'm not ready for a child! Where will it live? How shall I feed it?" The midwife smiled kindly. "Don't you worry. I'm sure your young man will help you provide for your child and you'll make room. You'll make due. These things always work out."

But things were not going well for Blue Belle. Her eating and drinking with abandon had made her fat and unhealthy. Her heart raced, her blood pumped through her veins with ferocity, and she felt weak. Her obsession with entertainers and performers had kept her housebound for some many months, and her joints were not used to a wide range of motion. As the baby pushed and shoved its way into the world, she felt her body tearing, her hips popping, her life draining.

As the midwife caught the baby, the smile faded from her face. The baby made no sound and the woman turned away from Blue Belle and conferred with the doctor. The doctor sent for the wise woman. Upon her arrival, she took the baby from the midwife and clucked her tongue at the sickly new mother. "It's as I said it would be. Your insides are poisoned - look at you! And your baby is poisoned as well." Still the baby made no sound. "What's wrong with it?" cried Blue Belle. "It's a syphilitic, like it's mother. Without commitment, there is only foolish blindness! You blinded yourself to that man's failings, and where is he now?" Blue Belle looked around but he was gone. Her azure eyes filled with tears. The wise woman did not relent. "It's also very small and clearly suffers from your alcoholism. It may well be brain damaged, but we shall never know because it has expired its last breath before even taking it's first." Blue Belle cried and cried, suddenly alone in her very tiny world.

The wise woman sat on the bed and took Blue Belle's head in her lap. "If only I had listened," Blue Belle wept. "If only I had taken my pleasures in moderation and sought to better myself. If only I had been the least bit..." but she could say no more, for she too had expired.

From her burial mound in the local graveyard, a rose bush grew and bloomed with the loveliest pale blue roses, but only for a season, and then they too were gone.

Identical Cousins. Wait, what?

I don't know how it never registered when I was a kid, but what the hell was up with the premise of the Patty Duke Show?

"They're cousins, identical cousins and you'll find... they laugh alike, they walk alike, some times they even talk alike.... you could lose your mind! when cousins! are two of a kind!"

I mean, seriously: how did it never occur to me that there's no such thing as "identical cousins"? Also, why do I still know the theme song to a show that was already in reruns before my mother had even graduated high school? Hrm... I just looked it up on wikipedia and evidently I don't remember all of the theme song. Here are the lyrics in full (just try to wrap your head around all the ways in which none of this makes sense):

Meet Cathy, who's lived most everywhere,
From Zanzibar to Barclay Square.
But Patty's only seen the sights
A girl can see from Brooklyn Heights - what a crazy pair!

But they're cousins,
Identical cousins all the way.
One pair of matching bookends,
Different as night and day.

Where Cathy adores a minuet,
The Ballet Russes, and crepe suzette,
Our Patty loves to rock and roll,
A hot dog makes her lose control - what a wild duet!

Still, they're cousins,
Identical cousins and you'll find,
They laugh alike, they walk alike,
At times they even talk alike -
You can lose your mind,
When cousins are two of a kind!

Okay, I'll admit it, that was mostly filler. I don't really have anything more to say about this other than to invite you to really fully consider the insanity that is the idea of IDENTICAL COUSINS.

Also, is the bit about the hot dog innuendo? If so: gross.

Live Blogging: The American Gladiators Experience

7:58pm - Pete and I have decided that we have to see the reborn American Gladiators to believe it. Or at least Pete has decided this, so I'm going to live blog.

8pm - The Hulkster just asked, "Where are my Gladiator Maniacs?" Um, I think you mean "hulkamaniacs."

8:01 - "And a tomboy goes against a lawyer..." Yes, truly it is the fight of the century.

8:02 - Wait, does the winner become a gladiator? During the Gladiator Roll Call, Pete just said, "Fury is a dude." That may well be true.

8:03 - First challenger - a 25-year old dude - is already crying over his mom dying of cancer. Can we have a game show these days without a back story?

8:04 - Pete says, "This is so close to Running Man." Except none of these douche bags dies. That'd be the main difference.

8:05 - "Big hit for Justice, the battle gladiator." Aren't all of them battle gladiators?
- I think the Hulkster and the first competitor were going to make out.

8:06 - The second competitor's back story involves children. Um, also, these guys are clearly actors. And isn't the scripting of this a violation of the writer's strike?

8:08 - The hulk only has one response to the competitors- "Unbelievable dude, unbelievable brother."
- Sob story... oh, I'm sorry, "back story" number 3: a Chinese tom boy whose father wanted a son and who's been petitioning to bring back American Gladiators since 2005. She clearly thinks she is the cutest thing since Teddy Ruxbin.

8:10 - Now Chinese Tom Boy is calling the Hulkster "brother."
- Competitor 4: A lawyer who is also a lady football player. She did not petition to bring the show back. I doubt her dedication and conviction.

8:12 - Chinese Tom Boy made it much higher up the rock-climbing wall because she weighs next to nothing. The gladiator is grabbing her around the waist to pull her off the wall. It's making a hilarious humping motion that I'm sure will end up on You-Tube to some '70s porn, wah-pedal heavy music.

8:13 - The Gladiator "Wolf" is pretty, um, awesome? He's got a little of The Nuge in him. And also golden locks that would make the three bears crave porridge.

8:16 - The Norse God Thor. That's what Wolf is going for. But Zaphod Beeblebrox from the movie of Hitchhiker's Guide is kind of what he achieved. They're on a pyramid of gym mats. Oh, about Gladiator Justice earlier, they said, "It's Hammer Time!" just in case you forgot that this dates to the early '90s.

8:18 - They're all wearing these neck braces that look like they're meant to pop your head off rather than protect you.

8:20 - Evidently kicking isn't allowed, but stepping on somone's head is. Semantics!

8:21 - I think Chinese Tom Boy and Gladiator Crush had a moment there. At the end they were mumbling through their mouth guards at each other and hugging. This is a weird show. I can't tell if it's intentionally homoerotic or if it's accidental.
- Militia ("Army of One") appears to have a bowling ball in his cup.

8:23 - "Son, you've gotta hulk it up, brother!" Cause the competitor's name is Son.

Wow, this is really long already. I say to Pete, "I hope this gets boringer soon." He says, "Well too bad, 'cause it's a non-stop thrill ride."

8:28 - Son is not very good at this.

8:30 - Oh, so much for semantics! Football Lawyer just got her points back for Gladiator Crush's illegal move.

8:31 - Wow, nice product placement, Nerf.

8:32 - I swear Chinese Tomboy got hit using the first weapon. Then she had to fire a crossbow but she didn't make it. I didn't remember there being a Nerf Crossbow.

8:33 - "I tried to shake and bake it, but it wasn't enough. Not enough shaking, I guess." Hrm, yes, that's what happened there.

8:35 - There is a commercial for Lipstick Jungle on. This looks like the worst, most anti-woman show since that Grey's Anatomy spinoff. "They're women, in a city, and they have sex sometimes," is Pete's analysis.

8:36 - I think Wolf just smelled Competitor 1's hair. Holy crap, he is hell of fast climbing that wall. The gladiators are acting like they won't get fed because they didn't catch these guys.

8:37 - Competitor 1's family gave the Hulkster goosebumps.

8:38 - There is a guy with a megaphone that says "GO CK" because those are Chinese Tom Boy's initials, but it totally looks like it said "GO FUCK" and was censored. Chinese Tom Boy just screamed something about the Gladiation, as in like Gladiator + Nation. Not the best portmanteau I've ever seen.

8:40 - You cannot look graceful on this show. I think Chinese Tom Boy thinks she's a boxer. She can't talk without bobbing and weaving. Of course Football Lawyer can't say a word without mentioning football some how.

Oh my God, how many commercials can there be? The answer: at least one more. Also, KGW thinks it's the #1 TV website or something. I guess other people aren't that bothered by their desire for your age, sex and zipcode every damn time you log on.

8:45 - Football Lawyer is not as good at this dodging-medicine-balls-on-a-plastic-bridge game as Chinese Tom Boy. I'm sure there's some joke there, somewhere.

8:47 - I think Competitor 1's cup is nobby. The lighting keeps highlighting it. Also, Competitor 2, Son, is not very good at this.

8:48 - Ha! Proof that they're actors! The ref just called Competitor 1 ("Evan") "Chad" and he nodded. Haha!

8:49 - Hey, they stole all these obstacles from Ninja Warrior!

8:50 - How you can celebrate "the fastest time ever" in a show this new?
- Pete just said, "Nagano could take all these guys." Yes, but so could Mr. Ninja Warrior, the guy who competes on that show in a diaper and never makes it past round 1. [Correction: Mr. Ninja Warrior isn't the diaper guy, but he did compete in short-shorts once.]

They made a new Rambo movie. I... But... It's... Just, why? Why was this necessary?

Oh my God, there's a new Guinness World Record's show and it has someone undoing bra straps. That is the most American thing I've ever heard of!

8:55 - Football Lawyer is a whiner. Chinese Tom Boy is over-confident. Whose obnoxious idiosyncrasy will reign supreme?
"Are the containers ready?" The ref is having some issues.

8:57 - There's no real penalty for not completing these events. Also, they both suck at this. If "Chad" could do it in 1:30...

8:58 - To the Hulkster, everything is "unbelievable!" He must be the biggest nihilist ever: he doesn't even believe in things he's seen with his own eyes.

8:59 - Ooh, next week a "47-year old single mother takes on a precocious cheerleader! It's a battle of the ages!" and a long-haired chiropractor takes on... eh, someone else. But this guy has hippie hair! That's gotta be good, right?

Sadly, I will never know who becomes the next gladiator. Because I don't care. I don't know if this show is worse the second time around, but it was bad enough the first time that it really doesn't matter. How did this get brought back and yet Firefly and Freaks and Geeks remain canceled? It's a strange world.

Weather, TV, Books - I have opinions!

Far be it from me to criticize the navigational abilities of weather, but I feel that we may need to stage an intervention. First, hurricane force winds and rain and flooding in NW Oregon. But okay, it's off the ocean, and the ocean is, if anything, powerfully unpredictable. Maybe even weather can't help that. But now a tornado? In VANCOUVER? I mean, that's just crazy talk! And it turns out there was an even more devastating tornado in Vancouver in 1972.

Momentary digression: I just saw an ad for the Portland Bridal Expo and it had some of the WORST film ever. The final images are of a "bride" traipsing down the runway and then a freeze frame right after she's turned. It's shot from below and at an angle, so imagine that her head is a straight vertical line at the center top of the shot; her body is a straight line from her neck to the bottom right corner of the screen, but turning in the middle so there's an almost nausiating sense of wrongness; her right arm is (if I remember correctly now) swinging out ahead of her from her far side, aimed towards the lower left corner; and her left arm is bent at the elbow, forming a triangle with her hip as the base and her elbow as the apex. The bouquet is in her left hand, looking stapled to her hip. And all of this is shot from below, so there are shadows under her chin and nose. It's a bridal expo, people: it's filled with people who know how to favorably photograph any bride in any light. But no: you picked the guy who usually shoots the car show because he knows the layout of the Expo Center already and will give you a discount if you buy him a hotdog.

Also, I've been reading a lot lately because... well, sadly, not because I love to read (which I do), but because of the writer's strike and Pete having Halo 3, Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect and now The Orange Box. [Fox 12 Morning Show update: one of their on-the-spot reporters is in a rented tux, dancing with a woman at the Expo Center. I think it's a very stiff box-step foxtrot. Oh God: he's trying to rumba and is doing that little twirling your hands and then shaking one to the side on the final beat thing. ::shudder::] I've read a lot of PD James mysteries, which I highly recommend. They're smart, James Doesn't try to prove to you that her detective is smart through gimmickry (like one writer who made a point of telling you that her main character had a 180 IQ, a perfect size-8 body and connections to Mossad in the first chapter of every book), they don't encourage you to solve the mystery yourself -although you sometimes can- and they don't usually end in the detective squaring off against his foe in a mano a mano battle to the death. I would start with an early one, like "A Mind to Murder" or "Unnatural Causes" before reading some of the later ones, like "The Black Tower" or "Death of an Expert Witness." The best of all (in my opinion, and of the one's I've read) is "Original Sin." It's like a thick set of character studies and is ultimately a rumination on the nature of family, personal loss, cruelty, revenge and forgiveness. But it helps to understand the main detective (Dalgliesh), although it isn't necessary to follow the plot.

I also just read "Stardust," which is a very sweet fairytale for adults because it has some cusses and some sex - but tasteful sex! It took about four hours to read, so if you've got a flight to take, it's the kind of paperback you can read on the plane and leave for the next passenger.

Yesterday I finished "The Golden Compass" and now I'm on to the second in that series, "The Subtle Knife." They're really good - fantasy adventure stories starring children without ever being cloying or new-agey. I picked them up because I was told they made fundamentalist christians mad and I had to know what all the fuss was about. The first one is more, "Oh, and also, in this world the Church is more like the Spanish Inquisition Church than the Church of today, and that's bad." But the second one is proving to be more, "And religion in general is a bad thing, tearing apart the universe and sending jackbooted thugs to your door." But we'll see. Mostly they're just really fun to read without making me cry (::coHARRYPOTTERugh::).

Anxiety! TV! Eehugh...

I have the anxieties. Sometimes, at night, when I am tired, I become particularly susceptible to being overly (and inappropriately) empathetic. Were you to walk in on my watching TV, and were I to not notice you, you would be able to watch my face mimic the expressions of the characters on the screen, moment to moment. I am like a mirror when I'm tired. Or a big dumb monkey. Whichever you prefer. But sometimes, when a show is quite good or I like the characters quite a lot, I am left with their emotional detritus long after the show is over. So tonight I am filled with anxieties about someone killing me and needing to throttle a friend because I watched "Weeds" when I was really too tired to be watching that show.

Here are some other shows that are super good: The Closer, Burn Notice, Psych. Yes, I watch a lot of TV on channels in the 50s (at least here in Portland). The Closer (on TNT) is really good; it's very clever and the characters are interesting and likable. Burn Notice is surprising. I guess I didn't give USA enough credit (as I am SO sick of Monk). Every so many episodes he just caps/blows up a guy. Because he's an ex-spy and you shouldn't fuck with him. Psych (also on USA) is a great comedy. The show is totally aware of how improbable its premise is and it embraces it. I really appreciate that in TV. Of course nothing on TV right now is quite as funny as 30 Rock. If you haven't seen that show at all, it is totally worth the half hour of your Thursday evening that it requires. If you have seen a couple episodes but haven't seen the ones with Isabella Rossellini, you need to watch them now. Highlights include her pulling down Tina Fay's top in one episode, and saying, with complete sincerity, "Damnit, Jack; you know how I love my big beef and cheddar," in another.

Maybe I'll see if I can find an episode of 30 Rock on the intertubes so that I can assuage my anxieties with the sweet balm of giggle fits.