Showing posts with label reality tv. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reality tv. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 14, 2018

TMZ is FB for Television

My wife is establishing how deeply she hates me: TMZ is on the television.

No matter how frequently it happens, I still go completely red in the face, as in blood boiling. Then make some sort of negative comment, as is absolutely necessary. The other day I came up with TMZ is like Faceyspaces for television. She thought about it and agreed, smiling. What she doesn't know is that I know the smile was for the reference and the fact that she turns it on just to piss me off.



  • Speaking of Valentine's Day, what do you get the lady who wants everything? Shoes, obviously.
  • What do you get the guy who wants things that are sometimes worth more than a house? Rolos, apparently.


Valentine's Day is the day named after St. Valentine. St. Valentine used to be known as Valentine, because they were so poor back then, they couldn't afford first names.  Valentine, as was customary in those times, was married to Mrs. Valentine. They lived simply because, as I mentioned, they were poor (stay with me here).  Valentine was known throughout the area, not for his deeds, so much as the fact that Mrs. Valentine was a raving bitch from hell. She was the kind of woman they burned at the stake; not because she was a witch, but because she annoyed the hell out of everyone, including pets. And those little rodents that might be moles or voles or elephant shrews - nobody cared about biology in those days.

One particularly miserable day, Valentine set out to buy his wife some flowers. This kept the bitching and carping down to a manageable level. He visited Flow, the flower guy, who apologized that he was out of flowers. Out of flowers? What kind of flower guy are you? Flow explained that in their village of Filthyralfia, it rained so much, the flowers drowned. When it wasn't raining, there was no sun to make them grow.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Valentine was on a tear, bringing grief and destruction to the people of the town. Starting with the priest and working her way down to the rubbish people, she made sure to insult each one of them personally. She considered her job very important and brought great skill and commitment to it. Some of the peasants formed a Village Watch and would let the others know when she was near. Grown men would hide under their houses and poke their ears out, rather than listen to one syllable from Mrs. Valentine.

Valentine had to walk ten miles, in the rain and gloom, to find a florist in the next town. He was struck by the sun there, and the fact it wasn't raining. He purchased their finest bouquet of roses (roses were initially brown, just like everything else in those days) and made the ten mile trek back to his village.

He gave the roses to Mrs. Valentine, who had only seen roses on television (they were poor but very advanced).  Then the most amazing thing happened: she stopped bitching. For five whole minutes.

A cheer went up into the air.
The village cried with joy. Children came down from the trees. The carnival re-opened. Pets walked the streets, unmolested.

From then on, Valentine was known as St. Valentine. Every year, men bought their wives roses (although the wives didn't shut up for any length of time). Or whatever they could find in the village. The date was February 14th, as close as they could tell, because most of them could not read or write.  

And they all lived happily ever after. Especially St. Valentine, who eventually shacked up with the florist's wife, since the florist never seemed to do anything useful anyway. And that, children, is how we got domestic partnership.



  • In celebration of Valentine's Day, there has not been a murder in Baltimore in ten days. Experts, who get paid a lot of money to make this stuff up and go on tv, theorize that the murderers don't want to buy anything for their ladies, so they made themselves scarce. Expect the murders to go back to normal next week.


Former Canadian Minister of Defence, Paul Hellyer, has come out and said the Illuminati is real and running things from the background. You may recognize Hellyer as the hoser who said ufos are real and there are real foreigners visiting.

To some, Mr. Hellyer is a conspiracy loon.
To those of us in the know (or just passing by this blog), he's largely correct.
The irony is that most of this is in the open now, or starting to creep in.




  • What kind of health insurance do pirates use?
  • ARRRRRRRRRR-P




If you get goosebumps from listening to music, your brain might be special, according to Matthew Sachs. His study showed people who strongly connect with music have more dense fibers between auditory and emotional parts of the brain. Whether this proves anything or not, Sachs won't tell anybody. Furthermore, when listening to Led Zeppelin, pungent smoke started to appear out of nowhere.

The study also showed that people who listen to Kanye and Niki Manaj have no brain at all.



  • A Malaysian newspaper published an article on how to spot a gay. Nobody knows why. Homosexuality is illegal in Malaysia and good for twenty years in the pokey, so to speak.
  • Gay men could be identified by their love of beards and the way they checked out other men at the gym. Lesbians hug each other and belittle men.
  • In reality, trans people can be identified by some combination of boobies and a penis, that just don't seem to go well together.
  • Lesbians do not belittle men: feminists do, as do feminist men. Lesbians can be identified by their eyebrows going up when you say BOOBIES. They are extremely fun to watch girls with.
  • Gay men.... well... stereotypes don't come from a vacuum. Sweater tied around the neck, owning a Yorkie, and belittling the clothes women wear are all sure signs there's a homo about. Another dead giveaway is having sex with men.



According to the Linguistic Society of America, there are close to 7,000 distinct languages on the planet (not counting New Jersey). As of recently, there are close to 7,001 languages, as one was discovered on the Malay Peninsula.

Maybe they have a specific slur for Malaysians. My multi-year search has turned up nothing.




  • Lifehacker, is a very interesting and helpful site, featuring great tips and, well.. hacks. Today they wanted to let us know that if you put lemon in water, you get no magic properties, like detox - you just get lemon water. These guys are sharp.



The sun came out today.
People were covering their eyes. Wondering what that strange light in the sky was. Praying to the gods. Setting grain aside. Watering their dead daisies. Hope began to appear in all who saw it.

Not to worry. In ten minutes it was gone.



  • I would like to share with you the lyrics to a song I just heard on a commercial. The wisdom and sensitivity of the words is inspirational. "Imma do it like dis, Imma do it like dat."  I hope these words stay with you as long as they stay with me.



The day has finally come... Hip hop is now the largest selling music in the country. This goes to show that, like the Kardashians, just because it sells well doesn't mean it is any good. My soul cries out in pain.

We know I'm a little bit off on very popular culture, so please bear with me. You know that show with the fat bleach blond mom who rode a scooter and had a daughter who might have been a beauty pageant contestant? It had an incredibly stupid name.  In any case, Mom (Momma June?) lost a few hundred pounds and now has her own show. Do you need further proof we're in End Times? As a person who likes words, I cannot possibly describe the blight on society these reality shows constitute. Everybody has had their fifteen minutes and now we're just scraping the bottom of the barrel.

You don't watch them. I don't watch them. But like spam, somebody's clicking on it...



  • People in England purchased tickets for the Reading Festival, then wished they could unpurchase them. The lineup, typically rock, is mostly rap and other assorted garbage. One person said they were selling their expensive tickets for 17p because that's all they were worth. It's happening all over the world, folks.


Germany has ruled Faceyspaces is out of order.

"Facebook collects and uses personal data without providing enough information to users to constitute meaningful consent." They make it too difficult to find the settings too.

Unfortunately this is Germany only. 

I have to be fair: as a libertarian, I'm against government regulation. As nice as it would be to stop Faceyspaces from collecting ridiculous amounts of information by default, it's the user's responsibility to read the privacy policy and make the necessary adjustments. Or better yet, not sign up for a Faceyspaces account.



Children Are Our Future department


Princeton held a class on Free Speech.
You know what's coming, right?

The teacher said 'nigger'.
A student yelled 'fuck you'.
Some students walked out.
And the class was canceled.

What have have the students learned here? 
The SJW who whines loudest gets what he wants. Especially if he can get a 'racist' in there somewhere. Somehow I don't think this will be helpful in their careers.  Aside from the death of sense, the people who should be really upset are the parents, who are paying what amounts to a house for tuition.


A high school teacher jumped on the #MeToo bandwagon because her students were touching her and emailing her inappropriately. This was a week after another teacher went public with similar accusations.

What have the students learned here?
You have to sexually harass your target just enough to upset them, but not enough to go to the authorities.


aside:  I performed at Princeton. Never have I seen a better-educated, more polite, and smart audience. My group's song parody act ran about thirty minutes at the time. We did over an hour because of the applause and encouragement. It was the only place anybody got some of our political humor. It must've changed or something.



  • French president Emmanuel Macron said that 'France will strike' if proven chemical bombs were used in Syria.
  • The entire country stands behind President Macron and is currently printing up signs and practicing calling out from work.



A study found that self-deprecating humor is linked to greater psychological wellbeing.

If I weren't such an idiot, I might agree.



  • Kansas has ruled that a dog cannot run for governor. The dog was submitted as a candidate after a few teenagers were submitted, after some wag discovered there was nothing in the rules about age.
  • Angus, a Vizsla, is described as a “caring, nurturing individual who cares about the best for humanity and all creatures other than squirrels.”
  • Upon hearing about the ruling, Princeton canceled all classes and France went on strike.



STOCK TIP - because you get your best market info from some weird blog

Invest in corn starch and talcum powder futures.
The way people are sending white powder to politicians, there's going to be a mad run on it.



  • Iran accused the West of using lizards for nuclear spying. Because their skin 'attracted atomic waves'.
  • The West is just angry because Iran deliberately keeps being next to Iraq on the map.
  • A little-known secret is that the Kardashians are Iranian. 
  • It's all over: Iran won.








Friday, September 23, 2011

Why We Dumped Fox News (and... )

Whoever described television as a vast wasteland seriously understated the issue.

We're a broadcast tv family, first because we couldn't afford the rapidly rising costs associated with premium television; second because there wasn't much more happening there than broadcast tv.

After a year or two without cable/dish, we have come to a number of sad conclusions. 

  1. There is little to nothing of value on broadcast tv
  2. Broadcast networks don't care and run infomercials to prove it
  3. Public tv is the only ray of hope left
  4. If you want to watch anything other than reality shows, you're screwed
  5. You will not escape with anything approaching information from the news
  6. There is not one original idea in television
I was all set to be happy, not paying for dish programming.  What I discovered is that the quality of broadcast programming is horrendous, almost as if the networks are just biding their time until everyone just gives up on watching it.

In addition, the switch to digital was way overhyped and not in our best interest.  What else could we expect from the FCC and our friends in D.C.?  The signal strength is dismal, it requires additional equipment to function, and the weather has a negative effect on the picture.  There is no fuzziness - it simply stops working.

THIS IS NEWS?


We always hear about liberal (or conservative) bias in news.  Fox News is known for its conservative bias.  In spite of this, we became a Fox family, largely as my wife tends to watch it a lot (note: we're libertarians and there is simply no news available with a libertarian bias).  Since it's local news, they tend to add in all sorts of local angles, spending way too much time on Things That Are Not News.

When Americans Idle got popular, they used to feature all sorts of stories about it.  Why this qualifies as news is completely beyond me.  Since X Factor is starting up, there are all sorts of stories about it.  In fact, Fox News has become little more than a commercial for X Factor, along with other reality shows that come on after the news.  It's bad enough we're inundated with an insane amount of inane commercials for the shows; now we have to deal with them in the guise of news.

To add insult to injury, Fox News is now all about social networking.  Quite frankly, if I were interested in what's happening on Twitter or Faceyspaces, I'd look there; not my nightly news.  Of precisely what news value is Faceyspaces Friend of the day?  During the recent, ridiculously overhyped hurricane Irene, the news kept going to their `social media center' to tell us what people were saying online.  Even when there is no severe weather, the anchors seem to spend a frightening amount of time glued to their cell phones and laptops, frequently while speaking.

Whatever happened to reporting the news?

My wife finally awoke to this nonsense (or got tired of hearing me point it out) and declared we were switching news stations.  The first night, our local CBS news seemed to spend most of its on-air time on sports, plus a bit of weather.  And a lot of Dancing with the Stars.

We're not getting much world news.  We're getting nothing of value (yes, lefty, that's the idea).  There is still a news blockade on the mention of Ron Paul.  We hear nothing about the protests on Wall Street.  We do get to hear about Brad Pitt's relationship with Jen Aniston.

Bread and circuses.

Our ABC affiliate featured local stories of virtually no import.  Plus stories on reality tv.

My wife and I looked at each other in stunned silence.  The others were almost as bad as Fox News in their own ways.  Television is clearly not the place to go for anything resembling news (regardless of your preferred bias).

I know public television has some nightly news shows.  They're next on the viewing list.  After that, I'm going to continue my video news blackout and get my news from the `net, where there are infinite amounts of bias and sources to be had.  Perhaps back to shortwave a bit too.

Where do you go for a dose of something that looks like truth?

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Is This A Good Time to be Italian? [the Goomba Dance]

As part of my extended Labor Day weekend, I had the pleasure of spending an evening with my parents, who I do not see enough.  We went over for the purpose of hanging out, eating (of course), and setting up their new laptop.

I'm not sure how this came about but my parents were given a brand new laptop - a stunning Dell with a seventeen inch monitor.  The thing was so heavy my mother couldn't lift it.  I believe this was considered a desktop replacement.  I love large monitors so I didn't have any trouble with it.

Well, that's not entirely true....  when I turned the thing on, to my horror, the setup routine started.... for Windows Vista [cue suspenseful music].  Anyone who has read more than two entries here knows that I'm not exactly a Microsoft enthusiast (kinda like Steve Ballmer isn't a Mac enthusiast).  I haven't spent more than ten minutes cumulatively with Vista, which suited me just fine.  The time I did spend with Vista was painful: let's just leave it there.

After an evening of good food, great company, and setting up a laptop, my total Vista exposure is now up to four and a half hours or so.  Yes, it took four and a half hours to set up Vista on a laptop and download/apply the updates.

The machine had a core duo processor and four gigs of RAM so I was hesitant to blame the performance (or lack of thereof) on hardware.  Therefore I blame it on the pig of an operating system called Vista.

I manage to tolerate Windows 7 (a pig with lipstick) relatively well, especially as I have to use it for work.  Vista, on the other hand, is enough to make me pull the remaining hair out of my scalp, set it on fire, and run around Redmond, demanding their acknowledgement that I am indeed a chicken.

I'm hoping my parents won't complain about the slowdown they experience, going from an old laptop with XP to a relatively new one with Vista.  They're currently thrilled to have email again, so we shall all remain hopeful.  The bootup sequence alone on this porcine excuse for an operating system in positively leaden.  Small wonder they sold four copies of it.

GOOMBAS?

During the interminable wait for Vista to load, my wife took advantage of my parents' cable connection to watch Real Housewives of New Jersey.

I am f-ing stunned.  There's simply no other way to put it.

Back at the homestead, we got rid of pay television due to finances and the utter wasteland comprising it.  We do not watch reality tv (or at least I don't) as a rule.  From the bits I've heard, it consists largely of people talking, ad nauseum, about themselves, as if everyone in the entire universe gave a rat's patootie.

Well, I don't like the way they keep house.  But enough about them, let's talk about me.

I had to think long and hard about a description for this debacle.  I'm a creative type, so I hate to let the opportunity get the best of me.   Try this on for size:

Real Housewives of New Jersey: It's like the Sopranos without all the witty dialog and attractive women.

I'm still stunned.

Yes, Virginia, those accents are real.   The breasts, however, are not.

I will admit to never having watched three seconds of Jersey Shore, for once letting my better judgment win the day.  But I have to say that if I were Italian, I would be quite upset at the portrayals in these shows.

Yes, there are people like this.  Hopefully they are in the minority.  I know tons of Italians, none of whom look, sound, or act like this.  In fact, I often tell people I'm Italian to confuse them.

If I didn't have a laptop with a pig of an operating system on which to operate, I would have gouged out my own eardrums.  I kept asking nicely if perhaps my wife was finished watching yet.  Then I brought out the sarcasm.  Unfortunately they sat there for hours and watched the twisted proceedings.  They kept describing it as a train wreck, from which you cannot turn away.

I don't know about you but I don't have any trouble not standing around, waiting for a train to crash.  I don't even listen to Amy Winehouse, fer chrissake.  I don't slow down to gawk at car accidents (or blinky police lights on the side of the road).  Yes, I'm one of a kind (thank your deities).

There were commercials interspersed between the tragedies.  Some of them were for Real Housewives of Different Neighborhoods.  Same idiots, different accent.

Yes, stereotypes are often hysterical.  I can laugh at almost anything.  But this isn't funny.

Bread and circuses.
Everyone will have fifteen minutes of fame.

The only funny outcome was the South Park episode we watched shortly thereafter.  Matt and Trey absolutely nailed them, throwing Snooky in for good measure.

It's a Jersey thing - you wouldn't understand.