more random thoughts

Just thought I'd dump a few of the random thoughts that have running around in my head recently onto this blog. These thoughts are so random, I thought it was only fitting to pair them with the most random picture I could find on Yahoo! Image Search. Enjoy...

• You know that rumor that's been making the rounds for the past 10 years about Tom Cruise? That he's gay and all of his relationships are just a sham to cover up this fact in order to save his career? Honestly, at this point, wouldn't the world rather he be gay than utterly insane? I mean if this is a ploy to save his career, it's just a gross miscalculation, don't you think?
  
• How the hell did Irene Cara beat out Wang Chung in last week's Hit Me Baby One More Time? Cara's cover of Anastasia (who? yeah, exactly) included "backup singers" who tried to upstage her every chance they got. The song barely featured Cara at all, as faux-Whitney and faux-Mariah stomped all over Cara's weak vocals. On the flip side, Wang Chung busted out Nelly's "Hot in Here" as their cover song. I mean, Wang Chung and Nelly? It sounds like chocolate and fish guts on paper, but it worked like chocolate and peanut butter in practice. I had to rewind it and watch it again -- it was that entertaining. When Wang (or was it Chung? I always get the two confused) exclaimed, "girl, I think my butt get big!" I thought it was a guarenteed victory. Boy was I wrong.
  
• I have yet to see Star Wars Episode III, which leads me to believe that I likely will never see this movie. And yet somehow, I couldn't care less.
  
• I miss Lost.
  
• I don't miss Will and Grace.
  
• That new Coldplay song, "Speed of Sound" sounds great. But then again, I liked it the first time I heard it a few years ago, you know, when it was called "Clocks."
  
• Despite the fact that the NBA Finals are going to a 7th and decisive game, don't you think ABC is wishing it could just show Dancing with the Stars like 3 times a week instead? The ratings for three showings of this would just destroy anything in its path. Game 7 would be lucky to dethrone Two and a Half Men reruns at this point.
  
• Am I the only person in America who really doesn't care when the latest Harry Potter book is coming out? Yeah, I thought so.
  
• I have yet to see it, but I hear the latest installment of the Real World is TiVo season pass material. Early reviews evoke RW Las Vegas level watchability. I won't lie to you. I'm excited. These kids sound so nuts, I have faith that they'll take any future Real World/Road Rules Challenges up a couple notches too. Sweet.
  
• I'm not really on board with this Iron Chef America show. It's just not Iron Chef without the dubbed giggling of Japanese actresses, you know?
  
• Bobby Flay sucks.
  

tv review: hit me baby one more time

Hit Me Baby One More Time is another summer season show which brings five one-hit wonder bands together for, well... the chance to humiliate themselves one last time in front of a live audience. Just a sampling of amazing talent that has been gathered thus far -- Vanilla Ice, Tiffany, Loverboy, Arrested Development, Flock of Seagulls, and Haddaway. It's like watching an Emmy Awards telecast that for some reason could only celebrate achievements from the television show, Small Wonder (and best actress pretending to be a robot goes to... surprise, surprise, that little girl who plays Vicki the robot!) -- not entirely satisfying, but yet mesmerizing in a weird way.

Each performer gets to hop on stage twice per show -- once to sing the song they were most famous for, the second time to cover a song that's currently tearing up the charts. The first performance is definitely the lesser of the two. It's a bit sad seeing all of the artists strain to try and sing the songs they recorded 15-20 years ago. Many did not fare well, as time has done a Boston Rob from Survivor on their vocal chords, and betrayed them at every turn.

The second song is where it gets interesting. Some, like Haddaway, try to do a faithful rendition of a current song (in this case, Britney's "Toxic") and fail so miserably that it's a distinct pleasure to watch. Others, like Arrested Development, take a song and reinvent it to fit their group's style. AD's version of "Heaven" actually comes out better than the original, which makes you wonder, what the hell happened to our love for them? Did we just decide after "Mr. Wendell" played for the 1,232 time that we'd turn our backs on these folks? Weird.

The one performance that confused me the most was Vanilla Ice covering Destiny's Child's "Survivor." The performance itself was pretty straightforward, but the lax rules around what qualifies as a cover disappointed me. The only word that the two songs had in common was "survivor." That's it. The beat? Totally different. The chorus? Not even close. The verses? Please. Call me old fashioned, but when you cover a song, it's gotta share at least a faint resemblance to the song. I'm not asking for a Mary Kate and Ashley type resemblance, but at least give me Alec and Steven Baldwin. Is that too much to ask?

In any case, Hit Me Baby One More Time is definitely a trip down memory lane. An exciting and amazing trip? Well, no. But there's some solid moments. Enough to allow me to reserve a party of two and a half for HMBOMT. 2.5 Salingers on the Salinger scale, where a Party of Five is the highest rating. There's been two episode aired on NBC so far, and the third one tonight is supposedly the last one of the summer. Don't worry, however, you can still catch reruns of any of these shows on NBC's cable station, Bravo. Word to your mutha (as Vanilla would say).

diary of a madman

Dear Diary,

Today I went on Oprah, and I ROCKED IT!!! I mean seriously, is there a cooler guy on the planet than me right now? I bet you every girl in the audience was staring at me and thinking, damn, I want a piece of that! And rightfully so. It was like 1983 all over again. I might as well have slid out on stage in my tighty whiteys to a little Bob Seger. It was that kind of day, man. And did you see Oprah's face? I mean she was like "YOU GO GIRL!" Not that I'm a chick or anything. I'm far from it. I'm the muthaf'in MAN! That what Katie tells me too. She's always like, I used to have your poster up in my bedroom and now we're like doing it up in my bedroom. She's really eloquent like that. And you know what? I think I can get her to join me in the world of scientology. I think it would f'in ROCK if we like shared that together, you know? I think we're close, I can feel it. If L. Ron Hubbard was here, he'd be like, dude, good f'in job. Ah, it's good to be me.

Tom

more proof that i know absolutely nothing

The latest Nielsen ratings are in, and Dancing with the Stars pulled in huge summer numbers, the only original summer program to crack the Top Ten:

1. CSI, CBS, 14.2 million viewers
2. Dancing with the Stars, ABC, 13.5 million viewers
3. CSI: Miami, CBS, 13.1 million viewers
4. Without a Trace, CBS, 12.6 million viewers
5. Two and a Half Men, CBS, 12.1 million viewers
6. Everybody Loves Raymond, CBS, 11.2 million viewers
7. 48 Hours Mystery, CBS, 10.7 million viewers
8. NCIS, CBS, 10.4 million viewers
9. 60 Minutes, CBS, 10.3 million viewers
10. Law & Order: Criminal Intent, NBC, 10 million viewers

Perhaps my mom was right afterall. A new blog entry coming soon...

summer viewing...

Ah, feel the warmth of the air. The hot afternoon sun burns long into the evening, as the ice cubes in your lemonade clink sharply against the cool glass tumbler in your hand. All of this can only mean one thing -- the summer television season has decended upon us.

Yes, now that Lost, Desperate Housewives, Scrubs, and The O.C. have entered summer hiatus, a whole slate of new shows have jumped in to take their place. Two in particular debuted on Wednesday night -- Dancing with the Stars and Beauty and the Geek. Of course, it is my duty to watch them both, not for my own enjoyment, but for yours. Yes, I know. It's very noble of me.

Dancing with the Stars combines elements of American Idol, Dirty Dancing, and The Surreal Life to create a reality stew of sorts. The basic premise -- teach a group of "stars" a series of dances over a period of just a few weeks, have them face off against each other in a dance showdown, and have these dances judged by a panel of three "experts" who rate their moves and stage presence, ala Simon Cowell and friends.

The "stars" that the show's title refers to? Julia Roberts? Tom Cruise? Will Smith? Um, no. Try former model Rachel Hunter, the dude who played J. Peterman on Seinfeld, one of the New Kids on the Block, and some chick from General Hospital. I think the show should have been called Dancing with Some Dudes and Chicks You May Have Seen on TV Once or Twice Before, So Maybe One or Two of Them Will Look Vaguely Familiar to You. Ok, so that title is a bit long, but at least it's accurate. The current title is blatant false advertising. It's worse than those "buy real estate with no money down and make millions doing it" infomercials.

The first time I saw promos for this show, I started thinking to myself "Who the hell is this show targetted at? This is the dumbest premise I've ever heard of." Of course, before I could even finish that thought, my mom exclaimed, "Oh good! This show looks like fun, when is it on?" That's when it hit me. My mom is insane. But then I thought a bit more about it and realized that According to Jim and Two and a Half Men are two of the highest rated shows on TV. That makes no logical sense either, but yet it's true. So perhaps my mom is just in that demographic of folks that just crave good ol' fashioned brainless entertainment. If that's the case, more power to Dancing with the Stars, I suppose. My only hope is that they spice it up in episode two by having Joey McIntyre trash talk everyone, prompting J. Peterman to scream, "no one puts Evander Holyfield in the corner," as he lifts Evander high in the air while "I Had the Time of My Life" plays in the background.

The other new summer show is Beauty and the Geek on the WB -- Ashton Kucher's "social experiment" television show. The show pairs 7 geeks (many are full fledged Mensa members) with 7 beauties (mostly blonde ditzes with bubbly personalities) into Can't Buy Me Love-style 2 person teams. The goal of each team, have the "geek" teach the "beauty" about history, spelling, math, and all things intellectual, while they in turn learn how to be cool. The team that makes the greatest change wins $250,000 each.

I expected to hate this show to be honest, I mean it IS an Ashton Kucher production, but it's actually pretty entertaining. Of course, no show like this would be complete without your usual contrived characters -- the 30 year old virgin, the uber-nerd, the ultimate blonde ditz -- but just like Can't Buy Me Love, some of the beauties actually start falling for the geeks that they originally mocked. The geeks and beauties alike start pulling for their teammates to succeed, rather than playing only for the sake of winning the money. It's heart warming in a "Coral hating the Miz and calling him a racist but then making the complete 180 by the end of the show to become his best friend in the next 400 Real World/Road Rules Challenges" kind of way. I'll keep an eye on this show throughout the summer to see if it lives up to the premise, but I would say it's worth watching if you're a reality show junkie like I am.

Overall scores on the Salinger Scale, where a Party of Five is the highest rating -- Dancing with the Stars gets 1 Salinger (and not even a good one like Bailey, I'd only give it a Claudia) for anyone in my general peer group. If you're my mom's age, or perhaps a real big fan of cheesy dancing, it would probably land about 2.5 Salingers. As for Beauty and the Geek, I'd say Charlie, Bailey, Julia, and half an Owen would be invited to the table. A Party of Three and a Half (3.5 Salingers) for all my nerds and hotties. Holla.