Bloggus Interruptus

Geez, like I don't get enough of this crap on TV. I'm in the middle of talking to two hot girls, and Bloggus Interruptus pops up with the "Restart" window. Screw you, buddy - you're Blog Blocking, big time. If I wanted to re-start, I'd re-start.

Then, I'm watching TV, and up comes the icon on the screen, telling me what's on next. I really don't care what's on next. I care about what's on now. Then, when the commercial break comes, they tell me what's on next - again. Not only do they have to hype up their next show, but they have to do it with moveable images that take up a quarter of the screen. Can I watch the show?

Imagine you're reading a book [a stretch, I know for the TV types] and someone waves a piece of paper in your face and says, "Read this!" Would you be irritated that somebody interrupted your book? Sure, you would. So, why do we stand for it when we're watching television?

They don't interrupt the commercials, only the program. To me, that demonstrates a lack of respect for their viewers, and reminds me that they only care about their advertisers (i.e. "bill payers") and figure that we're such slaves to their programs that we will withstand rude behavior because we're so addicted to Kyra Sedgwick that we will just roll our eyes and wait for the little "Here's what's next" thing to disappear so we can go on watching.

Rant over.

The question on everyone's mind.

I know what you’re asking. What are Anthony’s favorite TV shows? I knew it.

I used to watch more TV than I do now, which is ironic since I’m paying for it now, and I watched more when it was free. There’s so much crap and nonsense on TV that, frankly I’d rather be blogging. Here are some can’t miss shows:

American Chopper – I was on this bandwagon from day one, but got a little burned-out on it last year. I took some time away and now that it’s on Hi-Def, the bickering is as clear as ever. I have a lot of respect for the Teutel’s and what they have accomplished, and even though I don’t ride a motorbike, the ones they build are amazing. They’ve gone from a little shop in Montgomery, NY to TV stars. They’ve built quite a little empire.

My Name is Earl – Season three is coming, and I can feel the show slipping a little. I’m hoping they can inject some life into the plot line to keep me interested. I’m still with ya, though.

The Office – I was late to the party with this one, but thanks to DVD, I have used the summer to catch up on season one and part of two. I think it’s the best comedy on TV, even though comedy is a short list item these days.

Family Guy – Also a late arriver, but it’s fun, because animated shows can get away with things that live-action shows cannot.

Sunrise Earth – I didn’t know about this one until I got the Hi-Def TV. All it is are static shots of sunrise at different places around the world. Last week, it was a hot air balloon festival in Vermont. I think it might help to be stoned when watching this.

Curb Your Enthusiasm – Until I got HBO, I had to wait for the DVDs to come out at the end of every season. Now, I’m getting it free (for a little while) so I’ll be able to see it first-run in October. Watch – it’ll suck now that I can see it.

CBS Sunday Morning – A nice low-key way to start Sunday - a little cereal, the cat and Charles Osgood. Most of the time, it’s more interesting than 60 Minutes.

That’s about it. I got burned out on the Howie Mandel game show pretty quickly, so that’s a pass. The new one with Drew Carey is pretty good, but I think it’s mostly because I like him and he’s good at hosting the show.

I watch Letterman if I’m up that late, and I used to watch The Daily Show every night. I might need to go back to that.
I’m warming up to Mythbusters and Dirty Jobs. I didn’t care much for them at the beginning, but there’s a hottie on Mythbusters and Mike Rowe is a pretty good host. Girls probably think he’s a hottie, too.
60 Minutes is a staple, but if they took it off, I wouldn’t cry. I watch the first two minutes to see if anything interesting is on, then tune back for the Andy Rooney segment. Ditto for Saturday Night Live. I haven’t seen it in a couple of years, but it used to be a fixture. I couldn’t tell you 3 cast members now.

Mostly, I look at the TV listings every night and say “ugggh” to myself. Game shows, 'reality' TV and 'reality' TV disguised as a game show. As you know, I believe that reality TV is at the basement of every moral, spiritual and ethical belief that I hold dear; but that's OK, since I don't have to watch if I don't want to. Things go in cycles, and we’re in the “Disco” era of TV, where most things stink, and you have to dig to find quality.
I’ll keep digging.

Made for TV sports

On occasion, television runs out of things to show us. It happens because there are more TV channels than ever - and more all the time - and less and less interesting stuff to show. So much so, that things like America's Funniest Home Videos is a long-running program. It's interesting, since the show's title proclaims what we are supposed to believe it is; funny, when in fact, it really isn't all that funny. What it is is people being hit in the crotch and falling off of things, jumping off of things and having their pants fall down. The word funny is in the title (well, Funniest actually) so it must be funny. Funniest.

This week, in the doldrums of television that is the summer, baseball is holding its annual party that they call the All-Star break. It isn't a break, really, since there is a lot of baseball packed into those three days. The only break comes for the unlucky losers who aren't invited to the party. They get to spend three days at home with their families and ESPN and Fox get a couple of days of programming. Somewhere, the executives are doing the old brow-wipe and thinking, "Wow - we don't have to do anything until Thursday!"

The Home Run Derby is one of those made for TV events that happens to be loosely related to sports. It's sports because it happens on a baseball field, but it's really just Network Time-Filler disguised as sports.

Batting practice pitchers lobbing soft-toss Charlie Brown straight balls to big-league power hitters may be television's version of sport, but to me it's more of a game show. Add to it the insufferable screaming nonsense of Chris Berman (America's most overrated broadcaster) who calls every long fly ball as though it was game 7 of the World Series, and you have the makings of a real made-for-TV sports program. It's perfect. The players are already being paid, the network is already there to broadcast the game and the fans are dying to pay to get in. Free money.

Plus, it takes f - o - r - e - v - e - r. Three rounds of Home Run Derby takes longer than an actual baseball game. How does that happen? Television. Must. Fill. Time. Berman must scream and yell, as though we cannot see what is happening. He figures the louder he yells the more dramatic something is - when the exact opposite is true. Stop yelling Chris, you got the job.

The Derby has the odd distinction of being named after something that it is not. Are they home runs if there is no real game? "Back - back - back - home run!" Chris screams. Really? Who's going back, back, back? Is he talking to the ball?

I see the derby but the home run is lost on me. Home Run Derby is the sports equivalent of the tree falling in the forest when no one is there to hear it. Is it really a home run if there is no game?

It really is a TV show - and that's what matters. ESPN will milk it for a day or so while they run highlights and Berman screams. "Back - back - back - back ..."

Saturday Six v.1

A little known subset to the immensely popular Thursday Thirteen, I present the Saturday Six.

Six Things That Control Your World, Over Which You Have No Influence

1. Big Oil - No kidding. Did you put gas in your car this summer? Since then, the price has dropped about a dollar a gallon and I haven't heard about any big new discoveries or any wide-scale drilling projects. Price manipulation. Ya think?

Besides, so many things are made from petroleum, that to escape its influence would mean living in a cave - which would eliminate #2 and #3...

2. Television - Playoff and big-time sports start at ridiculous hours for those of us here in the Eastern time zone, advertising is invasive, we are persuaded to buy products we do not want or need and the cost of cable is outrageous. For those of us in restricted environments (condominiumns) who are stuck with either cable or rabbit ears, what else are we to do?

3. Microsoft - I'm trying to use my computer, but I cannot, because I have that little yellow shield in the toolbar telling me that I have new updates to install. Ignoring it, the shield has decided on its own to install the updates. Then, intrusively, it presents this little pop-up every ten minutes warning me that the computer will restart automatically unless I instruct otherwise. It's like having a kid in the back seat asking "Are we there yet?" every ten minutes. Have you seen this lately?

Microsoft: Controlling your life longer than you can remember.

4. Your Emotions - Like the prision colony at French Guiana, there is no escape. Any efforts to stifle them are fruitless. Desire is the best reason and biggest excuse for anything we do. "Because I want to" is controlled by our emotions, and fight them as we may, they exert great moral gravitational pull on us. We are taught from an early age (by religion or our guilt-induced upbringing) to "control your emotions", which is about as difficult as controlling anything else on this list.

5. Money - The key link to desire and the rest of our angst-riddled existence is the power of money. Otherwise, we would live in a world of barter, and what fun would that be? Lots, right?

There's always someone on #2 using #4 to get you to spend more on something you didn't have yesterday and won't need tomorrow. Usually, we got along fine without whatever it was, but we are told that we need it, want it and cannot live without it.

6. Time - There isn't enough of it, and try as we might to "save" time with devices and other such nonsense advertised on #2, all they really do is separate us from #5 and usually wind up costing us more #1 running around looking for it. Face it folks, there is only so much time, and each new thing we add to our lives (like Blogging) only takes up more of it.

Ask yourself if you really have more time to spend on the things you want to do, even though our lives are supposed to be easier with all of our new technology. If you ask me (and you didn't) our lives are more complicated than ever, and the more time we spend fighting our emotions, earning money, playing on the computer, driving our asses around and watching 200 cable channels; the more complex our lives become.

It never stops.

The NFL - Our 51st State

The National Football League is moving closer to world domination every day. Forget about the crisis in the Middle East and the threat of terrorism, the real threat to our way of life is coming from the NFL.

The top-rated TV show last week was Sunday night's Manning vs. Manning match-up on NBC, with 15,730,000 viewers nationwide. Seven of the top 20 programs last week were NFL games or pre-games.

There is an entire network devoted to the games, called appropriately, the NFL Network. Hey, nobody said they were creative geniuses, just bent on world domination.

There are games on Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Thursday. This Thanksgiving there are 3 games on, instead of the usual 2, because you can't have a holiday without 24-hour football.

Tuesday at 10am, the Philadelphia Eagles drove another nail into my cynical coffin. They placed on sale an additional 1,500 seats for each home game. Eagles games are sold-out, and season tickets are harder to come by than Elton John's girlfriends. Seriously, there is a 50,000 person waiting list to get them, so figure out how many people have to die for someone to get to #1 on the list. If I was a security guard looking for terrorists, I'd check the 50,000th guy on the waiting list and check his house for anthrax. One good dose would wipe out a lot of the fans ahead of him on the list - but I shouldn't give him any ideas.

Two interesting things about the additional tickets:
1 - They were standing-room tickets, which means you would have to find your own spot and hope that you were taller than the guy in front of you.
2 - They were priced at $50 each. To stand. For the record, that meant an extra $600,000 in ticket revenue for the team (12,000 tickets x $50), and they did nothing but provide a ticket. No seat, no luxury box ... only the priviledge of attending the game and the work of finding a place to stand. Suckers. I'll watch the game on TV - seated.

Even more interestingly (3), the tickets sold out quickly - 7 minutes, according to reports, and several scalping web sites had the tickets for sale 4 hours before they were available - for $185 each. Go figure. After all that, what motivation does the team have to (God forbid) maintain the price of tickets (or even lower them) if they know that people will overpay for them? For that matter, why even have seats?

TICKET MANAGER: Did you see the prices of those standing room tickets?
OWNER: Yes. Strange, isn't it? People will pay even if they don't have a seat.
TICKET MANAGER: Right. Maybe we could yank out all the seats and jam another 10,000 people in the stadium? If they don't want to sit down, why should we help them?
OWNER: That's a good point. If we take the seats out for next year, and reduce the price by $5, they'll think they're getting a bargain! We'll make even more money [rubbing hands with glee].
TICKET MANAGER: I'll order a hundred wrenches and get some homeless people to help, like we did when we had that snowstorm a couple years ago.
OWNER: Hell of an idea. Give them gloves this time.

Meanwhile, the NFL stands by and watches it, padding their pockets.

Junk on Television

There is a lot of junk on television.

I'm not talking about the programs, although there are enough of them to qualify. The junk is the stuff going on around the programs - icons, crawls, shrunken screens - all sorts of things designed to distract us from the program and make us pay attention to what else is on, rather than what is on now.

Several years ago, I purchased a 32-inch television to replace the 21-inch one that I had. Partly out of rebellion to a failed marriage, and partly because I wanted a bigger TV. (OK, mostly because I wanted a bigger TV) I could do what I wanted, and I wanted a big TV. Sure, it's not big by today's standards, but it was big then.

Little did I know that the 32-inch screen would soon become 21 inches, with the advent of modern technology that does little but make me yearn for the good old days - not the married part - just the TV part.

I'm trying to watch the news on CNN Headline News (the middle 'N' stands for News) but what I get is a screen full of so much junk that I can't concentrate on the news. Maybe that's the plan, I don't know, but whatever it is I don't like it.

There's a story about a movie, I guess, but I'm confused by another story about McDonald's, the weather in Dallas and a baseball score. I don't live in Dallas, so I don't care what the weather is, and I suspect that if I lived there, I'd already know what the weather was.

It's not like CNN is the only offender. Turn to any channel and there are spinning icons, crawls across the bottom of the screen and stuff that slides from one side to another telling me what is on after the show is over. It's distracting to the point that watching TV is a chore, and it shouldn't be a chore. It's bad enough sometimes, without making it a challenge to pay attention.

I wonder if the evolutionary process will bring about people with eyes that move independently, and are slightly more vertical than they are now, so that we can follow everything that's going on.

Or, maybe we'll end up like this guy?