What would Dr. Phil say about people who never update their blog?
The baby's afternoon feeding is usually around 3:00pm and I often pass the time by watching the first half of Dr. Phil. OK, I watch the whole thing.
I always start by telling myself I only have it on to amuse myself while the baby eats, but I usually end up getting sucked in -- unless it's one of those shows where his goofball son comes in to rap with the teens on their level or where he spends the hour interviewing his wife about how great their family is.
The problem is that occasionally a Dr. Phil-ism will seep into my consciousness and I will find myself referencing it in conversation. Shocked and disturbed that I have reached a place in my life where I am quoting the wisdom of a daytime talk show host, I usually make a poor attempt at disguising the source of my knowledge.
[J. and I discussing some problem...]ME: Yeah, that's a common issue. But it's like Dr....umm, I mean, the doctors at the American Academy of Psychiatrists say, "You have to name it before you can claim it."
J.: Do they always hand down their recommendations in rhyme?
Eventually he was on to me.
[J. hearing me on the phone with a friend...]ME: Well, Jessica, life rewards action, and you create your own experience.....Mmm-hmm....Yeah, Confucius said that.
J.: [Shaking his head and mouthing] Dr. Phil?
ME: [Nodding]
Falling asleep at the dinner table may have been somewhat of an indication that it's time to get the baby's sleeping on track so that I can get my life together, but I think that being a regular viewer of the Dr. Phil show is a major warning signal that my life is not exactly on track right now. At least I haven't stooped to watching the court shows and soap operas...yet.
Ringtones reach a new low
I have stated in the past that I'm not the biggest fan of ringtones for cell phones. But there's a new Sir Mix-A-Lot tone out that I have mixed emotions about.
Unfortunately for Mix-A-Lot, cell phone users, and the human race in general, I do not mean that the ringtone simply plays the tune of one of his songs. No, it plays him rapping new lyrics to the tune of Baby Got Back that he wrote specifically for the ringtone. It begins, "You want this call and you cannot lie."
Man, times are hard when the only airplay you can get is on some idiot's Nokia 3600. That's just really depressing. Will he include these pieces in his live performances? "And now here's one I wrote for the Sanyo MM7400..."
If there's a silver lining here it's that perhaps there is a future for Ashlee Simpson's catalogue of work after all. And maybe other '90s flame-outs like Gerardo and EMF can reunite and put together some new songs that talk about incoming calls.
I don't know, I'm reaching here. It's just so depressing.
No heat
I was half way through a great post a while ago but have decided to scrap it in favor of a post bitching about the fact that I am COLD. I would go put on some gloves but it would be impossible to type and then I wouldn't be able to share my bitching with all the world. It is interesting to note here that I am writing this not from my tent on the Lhotse Face of Everest nor from my arctic lair, but from my living room in southern Texas. Indeed, I even have the "heat" on.
When we were considering buying this place I asked many probing questions. What are the homeowners fees? Has any lead-based paint been used? What are the neighbors like? But never in my dreams did it occur to me to ask if the place has HEAT. I assumed that that was one of those things like indoor plumbing and running water that you could just take for granted.
Unfortunately, as I found out last winter, our building has some sort of "heating" system that involves blowing air over hot water pipes. Thus it is possible to get warmed air into your condo, but it'll never be hot. If you leave it on long enough you might even be able to warm the room up to a toasty 72 degrees.
My optimist husband cheerfully suggested last winter that we simply open the oven to provide more heat to the place. Nice idea, but the problem there is that we're not mountain people. If we're going to do that we may as well cancel cable and pass the time picking banjos and playing spoons. Or, hey, maybe we could even get some old gloves with the fingers cut out of them and burn some trash in an aluminum can like the homeless.
Yes, technically the oven will work to increase the ambient heat level in our living space. But it's the principle of the thing.
Anyway, in other news the baby seems to need less and less sleep every day, hence the lack of posting. But I'm learning to live on 4 fragmented hours of sleep per night (and no heat, as I may have mentioned), so life is good.
Where is PETA when you need them?
Why does it not seem to bother anyone that Ozzy Osbourne is having kids bite the heads off of live bats as part of a reality show? I'm no animal rights fanatic but this is ridiculous. Sacrificing animals for the sake of reality TV? Seems like it should be the other way around. The bats were at least contributing something to society by eating insects.
Where is PETA on this?
A 24-hour guide to television
You do not understand how much television I watch. It started in the third trimester of my pregnancy when I didn't feel like doing anything that involved physical or mental activity. I discovered that watching low-budget reality shows on HGTV and Dr. Phil required neither. Thus I became an expert in daytime television. Then I had the baby and have since been awake around the clock in a semi-conscious zombie state, so I'm now a connoisseur of all the gems that midnight to 5am programming has to offer as well.
You suckers who have jobs, lives, and occasionally leave your house have no idea what you're missing. Did you know that Ron Jeremy has an infomercial set up to look like a talk show about penis size? Did you know that Tony Danza has a show? Were you aware that any paranoid schizophrenic off the street can -- and does -- have a late night cable access show?
I thought not.
Since you're probably going to take the next few days off of work to sit in front of your television after that tantalizing teaser, I present to you a guide to watching television 24 hours a day.
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Early Morning
This is when you really want to be watching the Home and Garden network (HGTV). You have to see it to believe it. There are entire shows dedicated to making knickknacks out of trash. This morning I watched a denim vest wearing woman make a paint roller holder out of old tennis ball cans and a doll bed out of an oranges crate. And to think I would have just thrown that crap away! Yesterday I learned how to make wall hangings shaped like cats out of old scraps of felt, as well as instructions for creating bunny rabbit dolls out of old socks. All of these items are suggested as gifts for friends, which I find infinitely amusing.
Late Morning/Noon
This is when most of television really starts to suck (by my standards, which is saying something). It's all local news and upbeat talk shows -- the "Surprise, I'm a Transsexual!" type shows don't start until well after noon. Anyway, you can usually find some MTV reality show rerun or one of those VH1 shows with unemployed comedians with ironic t-shirts making ironic comments about some 80s nostalgia. Try to suffer through until afternoon...
Afternoon
This is when Dr. Phil comes on. I used to love this show (I'm a housewife -- it's the law) but it's really gone downhill. Basically Dr. Phil sits around and asks rhetorical questions like "How much would you like it if your daughter stopped stripping to support her crack habit? How great would that be? Can you imagine that?" and then he gives them a copy of his new book and tells them to read it. Pretty anticlimactic. The only reason to watch this show anymore is to remind yourself that there are a lot of people in the world whose lives are much, much more screwed up than yours. Luckily Maury Povitch is on at the same time, and he hasn't yet risen above doing shows about midgets and lesbians.
Primetime
Most people are pretty familiar with this time block so there's not much need for input from me. However, if you want a good laugh turn it back to HGTV and watch their attempts to compete with TLC's successful reality decorating shows. HGTV has a bunch of shows that are similar to Trading Spaces or While You Were Out but clearly don't have anywhere near the budget, so they just repaint the person's existing furniture with faux finishes that make it look like it's been sitting outside for a decade, add in some flea market crap and call it "shabby chic." The shows' hosts try to remain upbeat, but you get the distinct feeling that they're barely resisting the urge to shout "TLC please hire me!" as the credits roll.
Late Night
You know that late night programming has started when you see a Girls Gone Wild infomercial on every other channel. This program is baffling to me for two reasons: 1) Does nobody wear bras anymore? It would seem that women between the ages of 18 and 24 have stopped wearing bras altogether when they go to clubs so that they can be prepared in case the Girls Gone Wild crew happens to show up. 2) The infomercial repeatedly assures viewers that the videos come with a money back guarantee. Under what circumstances would someone need to return this product? The sales pitch is pretty straightforward: it's a video of drunk women lifting up their shirts. How can you not know what you're getting there? I'd love to see their customer service's log of reasons for returns. Perhaps: "I didn't know you could see actual nudity on the video! It's all blurred out in the infomercial!" Or maybe "That's my sister!"
Mercifully, there are myriad other infomercials to choose from for your late night viewing pleasure. The best are the ones that sell kitchen gadgets. Each one has a peppy host, assisted by a skeptical cohost who's just not so sure that this product can really work but ends up being amazed with all it can do. Somehow these people always manage to convince me that my life thus far has been a futile waste of time without this product.
Infomercials are your best bet during this time slot, because all your other options are depressing: Court TV crime mystery (which they might as well call the "Rape and Murder of Attractive White Women Show"); MSNBC documentaries, often about maximum security prisons; The Real World reruns; and SportsCenter. (I count SportsCenter as depressing because I'm a Longhorns and Texans fan.)
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And there you have it. Those of you who know me personally and have gently suggested that I should really try to leave the house more often are probably feeling pretty silly right now. Little did you know how much I was enriching my life over the past few weeks thanks to my tireless television viewing.
The Rockaway: Dumber than the Macarena?
Bad news, people. Remember the Macarena? That insidiously lame song with the too-stupid-to-think-about dance that reared its ugly head at every single wedding, office party or school dance you went to from 1995 to 1998? Remember how our only consolation was to tell ourselves that, yes, the human species has now hit rock bottom, but at least it can't get any worse? Well, it has.
Aptly named rapper Fat Joe has created a new dance called the Rockaway. Though the title says it all, he explains the dance moves in detail in his new single, Lean Back:
Said my [African-American friends] just pull up our pants
And do the Rockaway, now lean back, lean back, lean back, lean back
I said my [African-American friends] just pull up our pants
And do the Rockaway, now lean back, lean back, lean back, lean back
(Pardon my rough editing for decency. The original lyrics are much more eloquent.)
This song has been #1 on the Billboard rap charts for weeks. Has nobody else noticed that the Rockaway is just a discrete motion? It's just leaning backward. As a rule, if it's less complicated than the Hokey Pokey, it's not a dance. (It's amazing to watch them try to make it look cool in the video. The video ho's who look impressed and aroused while watching Fat Joe and his posse sway slightly in a backward direction deserve an Academy Award.)
OK, I admit, I'm just bitter that I didn't think of it first. Fat Joe can't maneuver his corpulent body to dance like the other guys at the club, so he gives a name to the limited range of motion he does have and makes millions. If I had known that this would actually work I would have been all over it years ago. I can't dance but I'm great at hovering by the bar and nodding my head to the music. This could have been the Drink 'N Nod, or perhaps the Booze Shuffle.
Maybe it's not too late. I'll end this post now so I can go work on my new dance, the Lie in Bed and Watch Seinfeld Reruns.
Who says I don't use my time productively?
I spend way too much time scrolling through the customer reviews of this product on Amazon. I submit that there is nothing funnier on the entire World Wide Web.
Why, Tiffany, why?
I hate Tiffany. Yes, I'm talking about that singer chick who hasn't had a hit since the 80s. The one who took a bunch of songs that were lame in the first place and re-sang them to make them suck in new and different ways.
My husband was surprised when I came home cursing her name. After all, I don't usually have particularly strong opinions about obscure 80s stars. I don't revile Kirk Cameron or get all angry whenever anyone talks about the chick who played the little robot on Small Wonders. Let me explain.
NARS cosmetics has a shade of lipstick (sorry, "lip lacquer" -- I guess people won't pay $20 for lipstick) in the most beautiful shade of red. I've never seen anything like it. It's a kind of maroon/burgundy mix, and it's perfect for me. It's like they had my picture up in the design room when they were formulating it and concocted the hue just to please me. Whenever I would wear it I would get frequent compliments about how great it looked. Ah, those were the days.
I went to Saks today to get a new bottle and found out to my great horror that it's been discontinued. NARS is no longer allowed to make it because the color was called Tiffany, and Washed-up-has-been Tiffany sued on the grounds that they were using her name to try and associate her with the product. And of course she just can't have that. Trying to sell a product by using someone else's name would be as deplorable as...well...trying to sell an album by singing someone else's songs.
Good thing she discovered their plan. When the marketing team was having the brainstorming session about what to name this shade, someone probably said, "We'd like to associate it with a woman who is as talented as she is beautiful. Someone famous. Someone at the top of her game. A venerable figure who transcends celebrity, an icon for the ages. Hey...what about Tiffany? Wasn't her cover of 'I Saw Him Standing There' just the greatest?"
Actually, I am willing to bet that that's not how that conversation went. It's just a hunch, but I'm guessing that the people at NARS, a cosmetics company on the cutting edge of fashion, aren't particularly anxious to be associated with "'I Think We're Alone Now' sung over a cheap synthesizer" Tiffany. They don't have Danny Bonaduce Blue eye glacé or Gary Busey moisturizing skin cremé. It is safe to say that the use of the name Tiffany here was a total coincidence.
Tiff, listen. I know times are hard. I know booze isn't free and smack dealers don't offer payment plans. And since the new record deals aren't exactly rolling in you need to do what you can for cash. But why can't you just rob liquor stores or go into porn like all the other washed-up celebrities? Why must you take away the one shade of lipstick that has ever looked good on me? Please, I beg of you, it's not too late. Call NARS and tell them you were just kidding. Offer to settle for them buying one of your albums or something, or maybe offering you a job.
I just don't know what I'll do without this lipstick. With my luck I'll find a replacement, only to discover they named it "Shaka Khan."
The 50 Most Overrated Movies of All Time - Part I
The other day I was ranting about how utterly not funny and inane Shrek is, as I am wont to do every time I see a preview for Shrek II. J. commented that he hadn't been exposed to this much bitching about movies since Amelie, one thing led to another, and a few hours later we had a rough draft of the 50 Most Overrated Movies of All Time. These aren't necessarily the worst (though some of them are). They're just movies that everyone claims are great, but actually blow.
I'm going to fix this up later and order them and add comments but, until then, I present to you some of the most overrated movies of all time (in no particular order). If you have not seen one of these and some friend is telling you that you just HAVE to because it's so good, you can safely skip the movie and hate that person forever.
* = Special Achievement in Sucking
Shrek*
Capturing the Friedmans
Leaving Las Vegas
Finding Nemo
Mrs. Doubtfire
Ordinary people
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Irreversible
The Nutty Professor
Reservoir Dogs
Six Degrees of Separation
Chocolat
Cape Fear
American Beauty
A River Runs Through It
Legends of the Fall
Donnie Darko
The Hours
Moonstruck
Rosemary's Baby
Austin Powers
Natural Born Killers
The Postman Always Rings Twice*
Splendor in the Grass
Bowling for Columbine
Chicago
Moulin Rouge
My Fair Lady
High Fidelity
Ulee's Gold*
Igby Goes Down
Thelma and Louise
Raging Bull
Mulholland Drive
Fantasia
Amelie*
Requiem for a Dream
Waking Life
English Patient
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf*
Far From Heaven
Easy Rider
Braveheart*
Jaws
Bride of Frankenstein
Rebel Without a Cause
Analyze This
Being John Malkovich
Speed*
Fight Club
City Slickers
...And ANY musical.
More thoughts while watching TV
My completely unedited thoughts, typed in real time as I spend a Friday night watching TV.
Maxim's Hot 100 on VH1
- Michelle Branch just said she was surprised that she is #20. I hear you, sister. At least she's perceptive. What is she doing on the list at all? Hell, this makes me think I have a shot at the top 10.
- Shows like this are the last realm of society untouched by political correctness. There is no attempt to recognize that female beauty comes in all different shapes and sizes or to show "real" women or any other crap like that. No chick bodybuilders, no hairy or fat women. Very little attempt to make anyone here seem powerful or successful. Just the plain 'ol objectification of skinny chicks with suspiciously large breasts. It's kind of refreshing, actually.
- My husband is asleep and I'm watching VH1 show endless footage of women oiling themselves up while wearing bikinis that appear to be made out of a shoelace. Not exactly a self-esteem-building exercise. Pregnant women in the third trimester should not watch VH1. Or MTV. Or E!. Maybe they just shouldn't own televisions.
- What?? They finally get to #1 and it's Jessica Simpson? Does stupidity count for nothing? Plus, she has a mouth like a horse. It's like they took the names of a few attractive women, threw in a few trolls like Michelle Branch and Mariah Carey, and just picked them randomly out of a hat. This show is a crock.
MTV's Boiling Pont
This is a reality show in which unsuspecting people are put in situations where someone is incredibly rude to them, and if they remain calm for a preset amount of time they win $100. This particular episode took place in a flower shop, where an employee mangled customers' flowers while wrapping them up.
Cha-ching! That would be the easiest $100 I ever made. The show's title, Boiling Point, implies that they're rewarding people for their self control and restraint. The producers clearly don't understand that there are legions of us out there who have the fortitude and assertiveness of Jell-O. Flower shop employee mangling my purchase? Hah! I'd probably still tell him to have a nice day. And when he jacked up the price by about 50% before handing the customer the waded mess of tissue paper and leaves? Noooo problem. If there were a tip jar I'm sure I'd still toss a dollar in there, just to make sure he didn't get mad at me or anything.
I can say with certainty, however, that my husband would not walk away with the hundred dollar bill. He might walk away with a set of handcuffs around his wrist or a couple of felony counts, but not the prize for tolerating aggressive rudeness. Definitely not.
Britney Spears injures knee, cancels tour
What a ridiculous reason to cancel the tour. As if the fans would just be crushed if there weren't any choreographed dance routines. You can still dress like slut and writhe around on the floor with a broken knee. Stop being lazy and get your ass back on tour.
Oh...no. I did a quick search on confirm that the story was true and had the misfortune to stumble across the fact that she hurt the knee while filming a new video in which her costar is Snoop Dogg. Snoop. Dogg. The Doggfather is now costarring in Britney Spears videos.
On that note of disgust and disillusionment, I'm going to sleep.
Thoughts while flipping channels
I've been flipping channels for the past two hours while sorting through email and doing some work on my laptop. Some thoughts:
- Kelly Osbourne: There is nothing sadder than a fat drug addict. The only perk of getting strung out on drugs is that most people get that tragically hip, heroin chic look. How can you fail at that too?
- Clean Sweep: I used to like this TLC show until J. pointed out that it's a show about people cleaning house. I initially tossed out some weak arguments about families getting a new start and home makeovers, but he's right. It is 30 full minutes devoted to watching people dust, sweep, vacuum, and throw things in the garbage. I want that 30 minutes of my life back.
- Iron Chef: This is the best show that has ever been created. I demand an Iron Chef Channel. Iron Chef Chen Kenichi was up against his old apprentice. Clearly, his honor was at stake. In an epic sweetfish battle the Iron Chef saved his honor and defeated the young challenger. Television just doesn't get much better than this.
- OnStar Commercials: More than one of these has gotten me all choked up. I'm such a sap. However, I'm not sure that these commercials make me want an OnStar system in my car. While it was touching to hear the recording of OnStar checking in on a person whose airbag had just gone off, it also made me think: Do you have to press a button to talk back to them, or can they just hear you? I'm not sure if I want Big Brother listening in to the first things I might say after being in an accident. What if I blurt out, "Bwahahaa, that'll teach you to drive slow in the left lane!" You know someone has gotten screwed by that:
[recording begins]
OnStar: Sir, I have a notice that your airbag just went off. Are you OK?
Driver: God, is that you?
OS: Uhh, no. This is OnStar.
D: Oh, right. Damn, I'm high as hell.
OS: Sir, are you OK?
D: Man, I knew I shouldn't have drank those seven Schlitz after I smoked that crack rock.
- "Decorating on a Budget" Shows: Look, I can go get a bunch of crap from the flea market and put it in my house any day. Nobody cares about watching people try to figure out how to give their living room a new look for less than $1,000. If I wanted to see broke people on a budget I'd set up a video camera in my living room. You're a major television channel. Shell out some cash and let's see some cool stuff.