Once again ladies and gentlemen, I hate Duke College Basketball. We ALL hated them during the Christian Laettner/Bobby Hurley days, and then they weren’t so good and the villains left and we didnt mind them so much anymore. Well, now it’s time to hate them again. Why? Well the main reason is for the media. ESPN, Dickie V, and everyone else over there touts this team as if they are the greatest team of all time in any sport. It gets very annoying. I can’t even watch a duke game on tv anymore because as soon as they score 6 unanswered points the announcers start throwing out the superlatives: “best team in the nation”, “best point guard in the nation”, blah blah blah. maybe it’s true, but i don’t care. You don’t need to remind me every time Mike Dunleavy hits a 3-pointer or Jason WIlliams gets a steal that this team will most likely cut down the nets this year. I can’t wait to root against them in the tourney…
call me a glutton, but one of the worst feelings I know, is when you have finished a meal (especially lunch for me), and you are still hungry. I hate this feeling. It’s like, the only reason I ate was to relieve the hunger. And yet the hunger persists, and if I am at work, i dont have any more food to eat. Man, I hate that…
Here’s the thing about the show ’24’ that rips me off. It has separated the country into 2 distinct groups of people for the next few months. Those who are watching 24, and those who arent. Because of the format of the show, which i applaud as being incredibly original and innovative, it is dang near impossible for one to jump in midway during the season and enjoy the show as much as one who has been watching it all along. Because of this, i submit to you that the following phenomenon is taking place in this country. The people who have been watching the show from the beginning love to talk about it, because it is a great show (i am in no way questioning how good this show is…i am assuming it is one of the best ever). But they also love to talk about it because they are a part of something that alot of other people arent a part of and cant become a part of. Like some secret society that they paid their dues to join. In november (or whenever the show started) they chose to make the time commitment to watch this thing and now that its a great show, their reward is to stuff it in the faces of the people who didnt make the decision to watch it. Likewise, those of us who didnt make the decision to watch the show, will eventually (if they havent already) become sick of hearing ‘the others’ rant on about how great this show is because there’s nothing we can do about it. It’s not like we can just start watching all of a sudden. I see this divide really tearing the country apart in the next few months until it all comes to a head in a shooting spree in a Burger King in suburban Chicago. Well, I don’t know if it will go that far, but i think i hit the nail on the head on this one. Bottom Line: The 24 watchers love telling everyone else how great this show is because its too late for them to watch it, and the non-24 watchers hate hearing how great of a show it is for the same reason…
while we are on the subject of TV, here’s another thing i cant stand: HBO shows winning these TV awards. Every year at the Golden Globes and the Emmy’s HBO shows always bring home a handful of hardware. Lately it has been Sex and the City and The Sopranos, years ago it was the Garry Shandling show. My beef with this is twofold: 1-How many people actually have HBO in their house? What is the percentage? 25% of homes? less? more? I dont know. but it alienates a large majority of the viewers when HBO wins all these awards becuase most people arent paying $50 a month to get the stupid channel in the first place. Nothing turns me off to an awards show more than this. 2-HBO has such an unfair advantage against the other shows because of what they can show being a pay cable channel. Imagine a mafia show like the Sopranos on ABC, only they cant use all of the salty language they use on HBO. it wouldnt be as real, which would make it less good. People watch and enjoy Sex and the City becuase Kim Cattrall apparently shows her boobs every week and they show people having sex in a soft-porn kinda way. Well, to much of the nation, that is alot better than watching USA network tease them with half a boob or NBC teasing you with no nookie. The point is, HBO’s dramas are innately more dramatic because of what they can show that network shows can’t. And the same goes for their comedies too, let’s face it, a few expletives now and then, although not something as Christians that we should condone, can be funny. So thats my beef with HBO and the award shows. Dont invite the jerks any more…
Speaking of award shows, is anyone else completely bored with the acceptance speeches? The name dropping and the endless thank yous. Noone cares anymore. They should be banned from acceptance speeches. Everyone should get 3 thank you’s and that’s it. Just like 3 timeouts per half. Use them how you want. “I’d like to thank my wife, my parents, and everyone i worked with on this film, you guys are great.” or “I’d like to thank Ron Howard, who directed this film like only he could, all the people at Dreamworks for making this film possible, and my husband, who always sobers me up in the morning after a night of partying and doing robitussin shots.” Thats it, 3. then if they have nothing else to say, they can go sit down. If they want to keep talking and tell us some good stories, more power to em. But the Thank you’s have to stop. they just have to…
And of course, no rant would be complete without me saying this: car commercials are the biggest farce ever perpetrated on the american public. Let’s be real here. Who has EVER, and i mean EVER, bought a car based on a commercial? Has anyone you know ever said to you, “Did you see that Nissan commercial? $2400 cash back on the Sentra right now! I gotta get over there and get one.” you see thats the problem. For 99.5% of the population, cars are not an impulse buy. Either you need one, or you dont. And if you need one, chances are you already know which one you want. IT really has nothing to do with the commercials. Here’s the one car commercial that I would love to see: “This is the last Toyota commercial you will ever see. From now on we will be completely eliminating our TV advertising campaign. In doing so, we will be saving roughly $12 million dollars this year. These savings will be passed on to you the consumer as we will be handing out a 50 dollar bill to each car buyer when they get the keys to their new car. So if you like car commercials, go buy a Ford, but if you want 50 bucks and more beer commercials, buy Toyota.” Now that might actually work…