MacGruber

On the topic of NPR funding messages, every time I hear "Gruber Family Foundation" I sing the MacGruber song from Saturday Night Live. Ok, I don't always sing it out loud, but I always hear it in my head.

create

Yeah, I'm liking this digital TV over the air. I still have to go to someone else's house for Project Runway, but not only do I get Universal Sports, I also get Create. Twenty-four hours a day of commercial-free cooking, knitting, crocheting, quilting, painting...thanks, PBS! This is one of eight public TV channels I get now - WETA has four, MPT has three, and WHUT has one.

I realize that there are cable channels about food and whatnot, but I've never heard of a knitting channel. Anyway, if there was one, it would be 50% commercials and would include a reality show in which young women with underdeveloped social skills live in a house together and try to impress the judges with the improvement in their Fair Isle technique while drinking heavily and picking fights. I prefer the nice slow-talking southern ladies with limited changes in camera angle. Much easier to learn from.

digital TV

Yeah, this free digital TV thing - it's pretty sweet. The local NBC affiliate recently added Universal Sports as their third channel. I *love* random sports channels. I just watched the men's team sprint at the world track cycling finals, and now they're covering the swimming world cup. I only wish they'd added this channel before the Olympics.

Oh, wait. I take it back. Now they're showing women's beach volleyball. Curse you, NBC!

brothers in audio

Funniest moment of the debate last night: After the festivities, on PBS, they were showing the commentators talking in the studio about how the debate went. Then they put up this shot of these two scruffy-looking guys. The guys were standing outside. They looked like brothers, maybe middle-aged farmers who'd been pulled aside on their way out of the auditorium to give their opinions on the candidates.

Yeah...it was Don Gonyea and Scott Horsley. Talk about a face made for radio.

don't you forget about me

Every time I see that JC Penney back-to-school ad based on The Breakfast Club, I am very confused. Do kids these days even know that movie?

Tonight this ad came on (and question crossed my mind) when I happened to be IMing with a 17-year-old on Facebook. And, whaddya know, she loves that movie. Weird. I didn't know anyone had watched it after, like, 1993.

You learn a lot about current commercials when watching the Olympics. My favorite commercial: this awesome Coke ad with Yao Ming and LeBron James.

netflix tv thing

How bout that netflix player box thing? It's 100 bucks to buy the box, then as long as you have a Netflix subscription with unlimited discs (like the three-at-a-time plan I have) you can watch their "watch it now" stuff on your TV. I'm kind of tempted - hey, it's cheaper than cable - but I think my internet might not be fast enough.

The obvious solution is that someone else should get one and then let me borrow it and try it on my TV. Sound good? Who's on board?

majide!

One of my favorite things about living in Japan was watching TV. The dramas were great, and some of them were major cultural events - everybody was watching when whatsername died on this show. I really got into one of the 15-minute daily soaps. Music Station ruled my Friday night. One quiz show was about geography (yay!) and had entertaining panelists. There was a completely hilarious Sunday night variety show that included a segment where they interviewed falling-down-drunk salarymen on their way home from work. And Iron Chef! And sumo tournaments!

But, man, the game shows? They were the best. Completely insane. Largely incomprehensible. Lots of potential for serious injury. This is why the ABC reality show "I Survived A Japanese Game Show," although you'd think it would be the kind of thing I would hate, really makes me happy.

I mean, I couldn't care less about the drama with the American contestants - who's winning and who's unhappy and who's getting kicked off the show and whatnot. But the competition is perfect. Believe you me, nothing is invented about that show. The weird production values? The overexcited host? The ridiculous costumes? Just like they do it back in ol' Nippon. Good times.

90210

Ok, come on, admit it - I'm sure I'm not the only one who's secretly kind of excited that 90210 is coming back this fall.

digital TV! over the air!

Whoa. I just hooked up my digital antenna converter thingy to my TV, and this is what I have to say: Whoa. For 20 bucks, I just approximately tripled the number of channels I get. They come in way clearer. And I now have access to some raaaandom stuff. All for free, over the air!

The new channels are all the "extra" channels of the channels I already got. Like, MHZ, the Channel of Random Stuff in Foreign Languages? It's now four channels: 57-1 (the one I got before, now un-fuzzy), 57-2, 57-3, and 57-4. That means right now I can choose between news from South Asia, Nigeria, China, and Belgium. Most of the channels just go up to two. The big network affiliates all have weather on their second channel, although one has a third channel that says it will start showing old tv programs in a few weeks.

Wow. This is pretty impressive. If this didn't work, I was thinking about taking the leap to cable, but I think I'm going to be happy with broadcast for a while. (Especially since She Gre down the hall has cable and watches Project Runway.)

If you're in the market, I got the Zenith DTT900. It's $60 at Circuit City, then the coupon takes off $40. It's been hooked up for, uh, maybe 15 minutes now, but so far I am quite pleased. My highly scientific method for choosing? Google and get this.

entourage

I'll admit to a tiny bit of schadenfreude on reading that Adrian Grenier's show on that dumb new cable channel sounds like a disaster.

I was totally shocked, after watching a season or two of Entourage, to learn that some people *like* Vincent Chase. I thought one of the things that made the show so great is that its central character is an unlikeable man-child and complete tool who manipulates his buddies into arranging their lives to his personal benefit. Anyone?

(Yeah, I know, the actor and the character are different people, but I dislike the character so heartily that it overflows a little to the actor.)

zut alors!

Did anyone else notice that Saturday Night Live was actually funny this season? An example, from last night's rerun: French Def Jam comedian Jean K. Jean.

tv, argh

Has anyone already done the research on the converter boxes for TVs (to convert from digital to analog for my elderly TV) and care to tell me which one I should get? Consumer Reports did a review of the first three that were available, but now there are a bunch more out. Or there are supposed to be soon. Argh. Confused. I may end up getting a new TV - my current one likes to show color blotches over the picture - but I'd like to at least try the free converter thing.

An annoying fact I have learned: When a digital signal gets weak, the picture doesn't go fuzzy, it disappears entirely. Which means every time a train goes by, my TV is going to drop out. I may end up having to get cable. Ugh. Or resorting to Netflix and friends' houses for my visual entertainment needs.

do not interrupt my quiz show, monkey

I just got home from a highly crankifying day at work, and I thought, oh good, I can watch Jeopardy. Jeopardy will make me happy. And 30 seconds into the intro - it's the college tournament - they break in with an ABC News Election Update in which Charlie Gibson tells me that he is confident in making the prediction that Hillary will win the primary in West Virginia, where the polls just closed. Seriously? This was worth breaking into programming for? *I* could have confidently made that prediction. A *monkey* could have confidently made that prediction.

Here's something else a monkey can do. (See also the Date Lab editors' chat.)

farmer wants a dumb person

A few weeks ago I watched a screener of the first episode of Farmer Wants a Wife and thought it was pretty hilarious. You know, in the so-bad-it's-good sense. Tonight I watched the second episode and you know what? I think it might just be bad. Has anyone else seen it?

stock car racing

Today I was outdoors for about four hours, singing or dancing most of that time. It was sunny and hot and by the end I was pretty wiped out. When I got home, I figured reading the New Yorker or watching Stalag 17 was guaranteed to put me to sleep immediately.

Instead, I found myself watching Nascar. They sucked me in with a little spin-out right after I flipped to the station. Then a few minutes later there was a giant crash, and how could I stop watching? This one driver was coming out of the pits and decide he should pull out onto the track right in front of the whole pack, which was going about twice as fast as him. Oops. One car ran up on top of his car and there were cars spinning out and running into each other all over the place. Almost all the cars were involved. (Everybody walked away - they've got impressive safety gear.)

Sample fascinating fact: Nascar cars have restrictor plates, which limit how fast the cars can go and are blamed for some of the nasty crashes, because restricting speed keeps all the fastest cars squished together in a pack.

Another fascinating fact: While the race is stopped after the crash, the crews can't work on the smashed-up cars. They spend the break examining the cars and figuring out how they're going to fix them when things start up again. Then they bash things around, straighten it up, and stick the body together with tablecloth-sized pieces of tape.

I don't think a race would be nearly as interesting to watch in person - it's really loud cars going around in circles - but with the commentary, the instant replay, and the help of the internet, it was totally engaging. It made me want to watch Cars again.

what's good for GM is good for R.E.M.

I assume it won't be long before this gets taken off youtube, so watch it now: R.E.M. on Colbert. Totally hilarious. Everybody's a winner.

project runway

Blatant bid for comments, because I know some of you are fans: I watched my first-ever episode of Project Runway tonight, and I'm totally hooked! It was the first episode of season 2. Work buddy Mr S loaned me the DVDs (he thinks one of his daughters has season 1 at college). I am so ready to hold a weekend-long marathon. New show to watch = so exciting!

hotel saski

I upgraded greatly, accomodations-wise, in Krakow. My room had high ceilings, extreme cleanliness, a bed I didn't have to make myself, and TV. TV! I feel a little shallow for being so excited about TV, but I *like* watching TV when I travel. Partly because, unlike my house, hotels have cable (European hotels don't have Comedy Central, but CNN International carries the Daily Show) and partly because it's fun to watch local TV.

My hotel TV got five or six Polish channels, about four German channels, German MTV, CNN International, BBC World, and Eurosport. (My favorite sports channel.) One night I sat in my hotel room and flipped back and forth between a table tennis tournament on Eurosport and In Her Shoes dubbed in German. So my TV gave me random international sports...and language practice!

Oh, the hotel, if you're looking for a place to stay in Krakow: Hotel Saski. Superb location half a block from the town square; includes a giant buffet breakfast of deliciousness; nice staff; I paid a little over $100 a night (stupid weak dollar) but it was worth it.

and now, a blog post about my real life

1. The other night I went out to my car and the CIRCUS TRAIN was going by. Oh my gosh. I was so excited. This is confusing, actually, because I just checked the circus schedule and the train was going into D.C. from the direction of Pittsburgh two days before opening in Baltimore. But anyway. It was still exciting.

2. Last night I saw Sara from Cycle 6 of "America's Next Top Model" at a metro station.

3. I remembered the Austin Grill as having decently priced, reasonably edible tex-mex food. Apparently I hadn't been there in a while. Last night I had a quick dinner there before going to the theater. For $24, I got a bad margarita and chewy enchiladas. The bad margarita, people, cost $7.50. What the heck??? N.Lu tells me this is now normal at the Austin Grill.

primary season

Ohmygosh you guys. It is so exciting living somewhere where a primary actually matters! I've never had my vote count in a primary, and now in the last week I've seen two Obama ads and one McCain ad, and I hardly ever even watch TV. Still waiting for a Clinton ad...omg. I just walked away from the computer for two minutes and a Clinton ad came on. This ROCKS.

Update, 15 minutes later: Another Hillary ad - and it's a different one! So exciting! And it's being immediately followed by a McCain ad! Man. This is cool. I can see how political ads might get old if you lived in, say, Ohio in October, but for this one week, I am psyched.