Dancing With the Stars

Image via WikipediaGenerally speaking, I do not watch so-called reality television.  There have been a few exceptions, but for the most part it is not something that I usually watch.  I can say with all honesty that I have never watched a single episode of American Idol.  Nor have I watched shows like Survivor, Big Brother, or The Amazing Race.  They just do not interest me.

As I said, it is a general rule for me.  There have been a few exceptions over the years, usually if there was a celebrity participating in the program that I had some sort of affinity for.  For instance, last year, I got caught up in watching The Biggest Loser when it was announced that Olympic gold medal wrestler Rulon Gardner would be a participant.  I watched Celebrity Apprentice the year that Trace Adkins was a member of the cast.

Dancing with the Stars is one of those programs that I rarely watch though I have watched with some interest in the past.  I think the only full season of that program that I watched was the year that Kristi Yamaguchi was a participant and eventual winner.  I watched a good bit the year Sara Evans was on the show.  As much as I like Sarah Palin, I did not watch much when her daughter Bristol was on the show.

The cast for the upcoming season of Dancing with the Stars was revealed, and in looking at the cast, I can safely say that I don't believe that I will be watching the show.  Their is just no person on the cast that I am even remotely a fan of.  I will say that the inclusion of Chaz (nee Chastity) Bono as a member will make for an interesting study of human nature and the tolerance of the country as a whole.

Chaz was born as a woman, the only daughter to Sonny Bono and Cher.  A few years ago, she began the process of gender transformation, identifying herself as a man, taking hormone shots and having sex change surgery.  A year ago, she had the court recognize her gender as male and legally changed her name from Chastity to Chaz.  Henceforth, for the rest of this post, I will refer to Chaz in the male gender as is his preference.  Chaz will be participating in the show as a man with a female dance partner.

Personally, as a Libertarian (though very conservative leaning) I could care less how Chaz identifies himself gender wise.  To each his own is my motto.  If this is what Chaz needs to make himself feel whole and happy, then more power to him.  When it comes to gay issues, I usually tend to be more neutral than hostile to their causes.  I do, however, also understand the issues that some more socially conservative folks have, especially withing the religious community.

I do believe that the majority of this country is center-right in their social and political views.  While I personally have no qualms with Chaz participating in the show as a man, there are those out their calling for ABC to remove Chaz from the programming and calling for boycotts of the show.  As I said, I will not be watching this year, but not because of Chaz Bono.  I do think it might be interesting to see if ratings suffer at all due to his appearance, or if there would be a concerted effort to see him eliminated from the show.  Then again, their could be a push from the gay community to vote for him.

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News Blackout

Before I started blogging, I didn't follow the political world with as much passion as I did after I started this blog.  During that time, I became a bit of a political junkie.  For the better part of two years my routine consisted of listening to talk radio in the morning, and then watching The O'Reilly Factor, Hannity, and On the Record on Fox News.

Back in December, during all of the fussing and fighting in DC regarding extending the Bush era tax cuts, I decided to cut back on the amount of news programming that I had been taking in.  I had grown tired of all the political fighting, and I had grown tired of the shows of both Bill O'Reilly and Greta Van Susteren.

After I implemented my self imposed news blackout, I basically stopped watching the nightly lineup on the Fox News Channel.  I also stopped watching any national network news, as their left leaning bias always infuriated me.  The only thing that I did continue was listening to talk radio during my commute to an from work.

A funny thing happened during my news blackout.  I found out that I really didn't miss it.  I started watching a couple comedies on network channels.  When there wasn't anything entertaining on network television, I started watching old comedies like Sanford and Son, All in the Family, and reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond.

It is so much more enjoyable to spend my evenings relaxing and laughing instead of getting angry at the talking heads on television.  I still get my fair share of news from talk radio, but I have even started to pare that back a little bit listening to a wider variety of radio programming while in the car. 

The Biggest Loser

Image by rockymountainhigh via FlickrIt is Tuesday night, so that means I will be watching "The Biggest Loser" on television tonight, much like I have since the current season began nearly three months ago.  Normally, I am not a fan of genre of television referred to as "reality television," but when I heard that former Olympic gold medalist Rulon Gardner was going to be a contestant, I decided to watch.

This is the 11th season of "The Biggest Loser," so it must get fairly good ratings on television.  I think this is probably the second season that I have actively watched the show.  It has been a few years since I watched it, but having rooted for Rulon when he won his gold medal, I had to watch this season.  I watched one full season of "Dancing with the Stars" when Kristi Yamaguchi was a contestant and winner of that contest.  That has been the extent of my reality television viewing.

Regular readers of this blog know that I am currently trying to transform my eating habits and trying to lose weight.  Since starting in mid February, I have lost about 15-20 pounds.  I still have a way to go to be at my "ideal" weight, but I am making progress slowly and steadily.  The best part is that while on my current program for nearly two months, I do not feel like I am depriving myself of anything which is half the battle.  I would like to say that watching "The Biggest Loser" is what inspired me to begin my own weight loss quest.  However, that isn't the case.  It was more a case of just feeling poorly all around.

I will say it is very inspirational to watch the contestants work towards their weight loss goals.  It can also get very emotional listening to them talk about how they got where they are and how they are doing working towards their goals.  The thing about watching a show like this is the fact that it is on television, and so often while watching television, the viewer engages in certain activities.  For me, those activities involved several glasses of red wine and a box of Cheez Its or a bag of chips.  The irony is not lost on me.

There is no doubt that there is an obesity epidemic in the United States these days.  I do not want to come across like a reformed eater trying to change everybody's eating habits, much like a reformed smoker can be the most obnoxious anti-smoking advocate, since I admit I still have a long way to go.  Still, I can not help but wonder how many people sit and watch a show like "The Biggest Loser" who do so with my old eating habits of pigging out on junk food oblivious to the irony of such behavior.  I have never been large enough to be a contestant on the show, and I hope I never do.  I also hope that I will never get as large as I was, nor be as large as I currently am.

How do You TV?

For years we had cable television.  I used to hate my cable company.  For the longest time though they were the only choice we had unless we wanted to break out the old rabbit ears or climb up on the roof and put a standard antenna up.  They were the only game in town, knew it, and acted like it.

The cable company that we were using had a lot of service outages.  Whenever you would call to report an outage, their customer service department was horrible.  If you happened to be the first person to call in the outage, they assumed that the problem was within your house and wanted to set up a service call, usually several days out.  If the service came back on, it was your responsibility to cancel the service call.

As time passed, more options started to become available to us; not more cable choices but satellite TV.  Even though satellite was becoming an option for us, I never seriously looked into it right away.  However, after one particularly bad service week with the cable company I called to complain.  I told them I was sick of their sporadic service and I was going to switch to Direct TV.  To give you an idea of how arrogant the cable customer service was, I was told, "Well that is your choice."

Needless to say, that really ticked me off.  I went out the next day to one of the local retailers who sold and set up Direct TV service.  I was surprised to find out that the service was actually a little bit cheaper than our cable company.  They came out within a couple of days and had us set up in no time at all.  Fortunately for us, the satellite dish could be mounted on the same side of the house as our old cable, so there was no need to run new wires through the house.

As soon as the installation was completed, I called the cable company to cancel my service.  You probably wouldn't be surprised to hear that when I did, I was given all sorts of special offers to keep my cable service.  I passed and never looked back.  At that point in time I swore that I would never have cable television again.

That is not to say that we have never had a service outage with Direct TV.  Occasionally, during very heavy rainstorms, we would lose our satellite reception.  However, we used to get those same kind of outages with our cable company.  The main difference though was that the weather cleared a bit, my reception always comes back with Direct TV without a service call and always faster than cable.

Messin With Sasquatch

I am not a big fan of television commercials, although they are a necessary evil.  Usually, I do not pay too much attention when they are on.  For me it provides an opportunity to head to the fridge for a cold beverage or snack, or to go the bathroom to relieve myself.  Most commercials, like the GEICO little piggie that went wee wee wee all the way home, I find annoying.  That is not to say that some commercials aren't entertaining.  My favorite commercials are probably the Jack Link "Messin with Sasquatch" commercials like the one below.

Funny stuff.  Last week, I had the opportunity to travel to Atlanta for a trade show.  One of the booths that I visited was the Jack Link booth.  Sasquatch was in attendance.  One of my coworkers and I decided that we were going to "Mess with Sasquatch" a bit and pull a good old fashioned prank on him.

Fortunately, old Sasquatch was a good sport and didn't tear us limb from limb.  In fact, he even let me take a more serious photo with my old buddy Sasquatch.  Next time, I will have to come up with another good natured prank to pull on him.

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The Shake Weight

This afternoon, my son wanted to go to Hooter's for lunch.  I can always go for some wings, so we headed on out.  If you have never been to Hooter's, like a lot of sports bars they have multiple televisions on showing sports.  On one of the screens, I saw the following infomercial playing.

Now, my son loves watching infomercials, so I have seen a lot of exercise infomercials, the P90X, the Bowflex, the Total Gym, and others. The Shake Weight was one that I had not seen before. I could not hear the actual commercial, but suffice to say that the thoughts I had while watching it were more in line with the parody below.

This Is Why Companies Block Some Websites

Imagine you are sitting at your desk at work.  You are a little bored and decide to do a little internet browsing.  So you find some hot pictures of Australian model Miranda Kerr.  All is good, except one of your coworkers is doing a live television interview and the images on your computer screen are being broadcast out for all the world to see.  Then you turn around and look straight into the camera just as the interview is ending.  BUSTED!

Needless to say, the video has become a YouTube hit.  I have worked for a few different companies over the years.  Everywhere I have worked they have had some sort of filter to block some websites.  Granted, the pictures were on GQ, so I could see how that might escape the filter.  But look at the setting.  It isn't like he is in a private office.  He is in a cubicle farm and anybody could see what is on his screen.  I can't imagine sitting in an open office area looking at pictures like these.

The pictures are very sexy.  She is nude in some, but as Monty Python used to say, the "naughty bits" are covered more or less.  If you want to get a better view of what the banker was looking at on his computer screen, here is the link to the slide show on the GQ website.   Miranda Kerr: Photos Photos: GQ.com

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Keith Olbermann/Jackass

The LA Times got it right on their television guide last Thursday when they listed "Jackass" in the "Countdown With Keith Olberman" time slot. There isn't a bigger jackass on the air than Keith Overbite Olberman.

It was an innocent mistake on the part of the Times, but oh how appropriate. A blogger for the Times, Andrew Morton, saw the humor in the error and commented on it in a post statingm "a few thousand people might have tuned into MSNBC, the Obama administration's favorite cable channel, expecting to see a Jackass show, and instead they'd have found Olbermann."

The next night on Olbermann's program, Keith shows that he can dish it out but he can't take it. Jackass is correct, and maybe a little understated.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

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Jon & Kate Plus 8

Let me preface this post with a bit of disclaimer. I mean no ill towards Jon & Kate Gosselin or their kids. I wish them nothing but the best.

My question is, other than to generally wish good will towards all, why should we care about Jon & Kate Gosselin?

Like a lot of couples, Jon and Kate Gosselin have had to resort to fertility treatments in order to have a family. Her first pregnancy resulted in twins. When they decided to expand their family, the next pregnancy resulted in sextuplets. Their lives have since become the subject of a reality television series, Jon and Kate Plus 8.

This is where my problem with Jon & Kate begins. When did we as a nation get to the point where the lives of our fellow citizens has become entertainment? I do not understand where the fascination is in watching the daily struggles of a large family. To me, entertainment is supposed to be an escape from my everyday world.

I do not want to get into all of the tabloid sensationalism surrounding the family these days. To me that is just part of the problem. My only hope is that these folks can work out whatever problems they have and go back to being a "normal" family outside of the spot light.

Happy Birthday Kevin Costner

Kevin Costner is celebrating his 53rd birthday today.  Since earlier this week, I posted a couple videos of Telly Savalas and William Shatner performing songs (I can't really call it singing) here is Kevin Costner with his band Modern West performing "Long Hot Night" on Opry Live.  All I can say is that I prefer his performance in "Bull Durham," "Field of Dreams," and "Tin Cup" to his performance here.  Though, he does do a better job than Savalas and Shatner, but that isn't saying much.

SNL-Jizz In My Pants

Premature ejaculation is no laughing matter, unless you are Andy Samberg and Jorma Taccone. OK, this video is crude, but it is hilarious, especially some of the facial expressions from the guys. I still prefer "Dick in a Box" from Samberg and Justin Timberlake, but this one ranks right up there. By the way, look for a brief appearance from Timberlake swinging a mop, along with Molly Sims and Jamie Lynn Sigler as the triggers of their ecstasy.