Where I Rant at the Television

Yes, it's a bad day when I rant at the TV, but I did tonight. My newest guilty pleasure is the reality show "Addicted to Food" on the Oprah network. It's an addiction recovery show, kick-ass Texas style. Woot! I love it when the therapists get all hardcore. No mollycoddling the addicts here.

The story lines don't deal with food or eating all that much. That's all minor in the show. Food just happens to be the substance the addicts abuse. What they do show is *why* the addict is an addict and deal with the core problem. Now that there is some good TV!

Anywho, the new episodes air on Tuesday nights. I checked the schedule to see if last week's episode was airing as a rerun before the new episode. The show wasn't even on the schedule! Crap! What's up with that, Oprah? The last show had trailers for the next show, so I know it's already in the can and ready to air. Where is it? I want my Addicted to Food! And I want it now! I'm addicted!

In Addicted's time slot was "Becoming Chaz" about how Chastity Bono had a sex-change operation and is now physically and legally a man. Whoa! When did this all happen? Why haven't I heard about it before now? Am I that behind on popular culture? Hubby even knew about it already. Last time I saw Chastity she was getting her house fixed up on "Designed to Sell" or one of those shows.

Saw Chaz in a preview clip of the show. Made me sad. Oh, I'm happy for Chaz that he now has a body that matches his brain. Good for him. However, stepping back and looking at the big picture, I'm a little sad. The world is now -1 in the Damn Fine Lesbian column, and +1 in the Bloated Straight Guy column. That can't be good.

**sigh**

What Were They Thinking? - TV Commercials

I've been in Major Couch Potato mode lately. I've earned three more stripes for my uniform and seen waaaay too many commercials. Sometimes I wonder, "What were they thinking???"

1) AcipHex

AcipHex is a pill for the relief of heartburn and acid reflux. The brand name probably is a moosh of words that stand for something like Acid PH Extermination or something like that. Named so doctors can easily remember what it should be prescribed for. That's all well and good I suppose. The name looks all medical-like written on the prescription pad. Unfortunately, when pronounced, it sounds like "Ass Effects."

"Hey Bill, having problems with heartburn again? You should get some Ass Effects."

I half expected Bill to turn around and look at his butt. Didn't someone in product development say the name out loud a time or two? Didn't anyone speak up in those meetings and say, "Maybe we should rethink this...."

Perhaps if you take this drug you will end up with a J-Lo butt. Hummm...lemme run that past the marketing department.


2) It may not be under control....

There are two commercials with a problem here: one for an asthma inhaler; another for Crohn's Disease. The same writers were hired for both commercials.

Both state, "If you are taking medication for your problem and are still having symptoms, your problem may not be under control."

Duh. YA THINK???


3) Pam cooking spray

The commercial says your food won't stick to anything if you use Pam. Some really cool special effects show the food seemingly floating on air. Pulling the kabobs off the invisible skewer makes sense. Pam makes the skewer so non-stick you won't even know it's there. Fair enough.

The part I find rather stupid is the little bit of spaghetti floating around in lots of water in a huge, invisible pot. Now I'm not the bestest cook in the world and I've scorched, burnt, and stuck my share of dinners. But never, ever have I had a problem with water sticking to my cookware. What were they thinking???


4) The Andromeda Strain - A&E

A&E has remade the old sci-fi classic The Andromeda Strain and it premiers on Memorial Day. All well and good. What's not so good is they have decided to run the commercial for it at EVERY commercial break throughout the day on A&E. If I watch A&E I will be subjected to this commercial sixty bazillion times between now and then.

If I had any inclination to watch it when the first commercial aired, I now most assuredly do not because I am sooooo tired of it and hacked at A&E for airing it so often. I probably won't watch A&E until after Memorial Day just to avoid this stupid commercial. I'll bet I'm not the only one.

A&E are you reading this? Wanna rethink this promotion???

---

OK, enough about commercials. I wanna talk about the original Andromeda Strain movie. There are two things I remember about it.

1) The body sterilizer machine

Before the scientists can enter the underground lab, they have to git nekkid in a sterilizing chamber and put on this cool sparkly helmet thingy. A big flash burns off all their body hair and dead skin cells.



How cool! I SO need me one of those! No more shaving legs and pits and other body bits. No more crusty elbows! My feetsies would look fantastic in those cute little strappy summer sandals now. Every morning I could step into SteriMax 9000 and Poof! I'd be good to go. No more razor burns; no more Ped Eggs.

I wonder if the sparkly helmet is included or would I have to buy that separately? Maybe it's free with separate shipping and handling.


2) Drinking sterno

One line of the movie is, "The only survivors are a crying baby and an old man who drinks sterno." That drinking sterno bit kinda flummoxed me and I've never figured it out. It's one of those INUs that's been orbiting my Giant Spitwad for the past 38 years.

I always thought sterno was that purple jelly stuff that burns in a little can under the pans on a buffet table. How does one drink purple jelly???

Inquiring minds want to know.

Kellogg's All-Bran Commercial

The new Kellogg's All-Bran commercial is one of the funniest commercials I've seen in a long time. It seemed fairly benign the first dozen or so times I saw it. Then one day I saw the big I-beam drop from the little slit and the light bulb began to flicker. I caught the load of bricks at the end and couldn't believe this was a a squeaky-clean Kellogg's commercial.

Then the next time it came on I saw the 55-gallon drums rolling from the guy's rear end. OMG! This is tooo good. I love it!

A standing ovation to the guy who came up with this concept. It's a pretty novel way of portraying the concept "Eat All-Bran, Poop A Lot" without actually saying the word "poop" on TV.

It's the End of the World as We Know It...

-or-
THREE THINGS ABOUT THE YEAR 2012

The History Channel is airing a series called The Universe and tonight was the premier episode, Secrets of the Sun. We couldn't tear ourselves away from the tube. It was fascinating stuff. They were able to make astrophysics accessible to ordinary bubbettes like me who can barely find the Big Dipper most nights. Woo Hoo! I highly recommend this show. I hope the rest of the episodes are just as great.

One of the things I learned is that the sun has an eleven-year cycle of sunspot activity. Sunspots and solar flares occur most when the sun changes its magnetic polarity or plasma rotation or something like that. Solar flares blast radioactive plasma goo out into the universe like a shotgun. If the plasma happens to shoot towards Earth, it toasts our electronics because the radioactivity interrupts the flow of electrons. If the sun shoots a double-ought buckshot load of plasma goo towards earth, people will be toast.

The period during the eleven-year cycle with the most sunspot activity is called the solar maxima, and the last one was in 2001. The next one is predicted for 2012.

I recommend Toast Protector© SPF 4500 sunscreen, or a lead jumpsuit, whichever is most suitable for the conditions.

+++++++++++

Ten years ago I attended an investment brown bag lunch at my local Edward Jones office. The speaker explained the huge financial impact Baby Boomers have on the stock market and the economy as a whole. Basically his advice was to figure out what Baby Boomers are buying, then buy stock in that company. You will quadruple your money.

He also said when Baby Boomers start to reach retirement age, they will begin pulling their money out of the stock market for lower risk investments. The stock market will then go into a 30-year decline the likes of which the U.S. has not seen since the Great Depression. This decline is predicted starting in 2012.

I recommend buying stock in OTC arthritis medications, but sell before Dec. 31, 2011.

+++++++++++

The ancient Mayan calender, which seems to be uncannily accurate, ends soon. Some people interpret this as the date the Mayans calculated to be end of the world because they didn't bother to make a new calender. Others interpret this date as the end of an "age" when the world as we know it is supposed to be "transformed." The last day of the Mayan calender and the specified date for said transformation is Dec. 21, 2012.

I wonder if the Mayans figured out we would be transformed into toast by a killer solar flare? That would consolidate several theories very nicely. I think they just failed to get the new calender to the printers before their whole civilization croaked.

+++++++++++

It seems that something big is gonna happen around 2012. I don't know whether I will be transformed or toasted or transformed into toast. Either way I'm sellin' my stock. The moral of the story is to enjoy the next five years because in 2012 we may all be screwed.



Cue R.E.M. tune:
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.

Shootings at Virginia Tech

This afternoon the TV was filled with coverage of the fatal shootings at Virginia Tech. Not much was known at the time about the shooter, his victims, or the reasons why.

What hacked me off to no end was the endless speculation about who was at fault. Commentators blamed campus security personnel, campus security measures, the local police, VT administration, gun control laws, and American culture as a whole. Ack!

Has the American media and public sunk to being a bunch of brainless fingerpointers???

The person at fault was the psycho who pulled the trigger. No one else. Don't rape my ear with any further discussion on the matter.

No amount of notification or prevention measures can stop a nutcase from carrying out his intended task. It just isn't possible. They will always find a way.

A senator from somewhere said that she had introduced a bill to limit gun clip size to 10 rounds. How very pointless that piece of legislation would be. If a nut is determined to kill a bunch of people, he'll just buy TWO clips. Duh!

Since the on-air news media had nothing intelligent to add to my knowledge base, I turned off the tube.

I remember now why I don't watch much television.