Commercials

While watching the World Series, the absolute worst part about the whole thing is that they only air two commercials: the one with the very wealthy CEO of Sprint pretending to eat on a diner stool, surprised we still call phones, "phones", and a new (now very old) DirecTV commercial that takes a clip with Chevy Chase in Vacation and superimposes now-Christie Brinkley in her role from the 1983 movie. DirecTV had a great idea with their recent line of commercials, but airing them every single break is complete overkill. It's like eating 30 Oreos.

Heroes

I really wish I still liked "Heroes." It started out as an intriguing show, but it's turned into labored watching for me. People are always rushing around doing something that you are supposed to assume is extremely important, and then they end up fighting for some reason. Then there's a scene where someone explains a whole lot of nonsense as if it just occurred to them. Repeat. Formula is the grim reaper of tv shows for me, which is also why I'm less into Curb your Enthusiasm than I was in its first couple seasons.

Not to mention there are a few bad actors on the show: that Indian guy, the weird-mouth-was-in-Rocky-Balboa guy, and the South American girl. So I think I'm gonna hang Heroes up.

On a totally separate note, "Mr. McFeely" is a horrible name for a mailman on a kids show.

Sense (= none)

A woman just entered the room wearing a very heavy, thick, winter coat in 65 degree weather and commented, "Why does it feel like they have the oven turned on?"

There could be one day where I will wake up and just accept that some people cannot connect thought with reality, but I doubt that will be anytime soon. Some people are just simply oblivious to their Obviously Warm and Heavy Winter Coat.

Jeremy Davies

Jeremy Davies is my least favorite actor of all time. His performance in Saving Private Ryan was not bad, but in every other movie I've seen him in he plays the exact same character: The slightly deranged, confused, bumbling eccentric. And he's playing the same exact character on LOST right now. And it's not really acting. I've seen him in interviews and he is a slightly deranged, confused, bumbling eccentric. Like the guy in high school who tried so desperately hard to be weird but whose weird plan was way too transparent to be convincing.

I realize there are technically worse actors out there (Freddie Prinze, Jr., Lauren Ambrose, Keanu Reeves), but the fact that Jeremy Davies thinks his performances are compelling just completely bugs me.

Men Without Chests: Conviction Over Elegance

"We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise."
- C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

I don’t know if Americans are getting less intelligent academically, and I’m not sure how you would gauge that anyway. It’s easy to point to things like reality TV and Kevin Federline, but I think those examples are just reflecting the high amount of exposure the media gives to less intelligent people. We like seeing them do really dumb things because it makes us feel smarter, which is a justified feeling most of the time. And some of it is actually entertaining. As I was watching some of the political debates, I wondered if Americans are getting more intelligent politically in a very particular way, and my curiosity has to do with a cinematic analogy.

When anyone goes to a movie these days, they have extremely high standards for special effects, CGI and other tricks to make the images look as real as possible. Special effects from the 80’s and even ten years ago look dated now, and the average movie-goer sees them as quaint. When I watch some of these political debates, I notice right away that some of the candidates are attempting to use an outdated strategy that Bill Clinton mastered: appearing as if you said something without really saying anything of substance. People seem to be really tired of that political strategy. They don’t want the illusion of a leader, they want a real leader with conviction, and that might be easier to spot than it used to be.

This is one example that I think illustrates the point (go about 3:30 into it if you want to skip Chris Dodd and Obama):





Hillary started out as a somewhat strong candidate, probably because of her name alone. The more she talks, the less people like her (insert woman joke here). Another example is when Jon Stewart interviewed Chris Matthews from Hardball about his infuriatingly backwards book, Life's a Campaign. (He should leave out unnecessary title contractions in his campaign.) Here's a clip from the day after that addresses the interview:







Stewart lit into Matthews for constructing his whole life to be basically artificial, i.e. a campaign. It was one of the most popular videos on YouTube before they took it down and it's one of the most popular on the Daily Show site.



There are other examples of the public getting wise to "politalk" that include loud boos after canned responses from Romney, Giuliani and others. I'm not sure how this intolerance of scripted answers will translate in the voting booths next year, but I hope this is an actual trend and not merely my personal wishful thinking.

(Completely off-topic - I wonder how many reindeer jokes Giuliani gets this time of year.)

How to Get on Reddit

Ron Paul is amazing.

Mike Huckabee is not.

A government official and/or media network is doing something horrific.

Genius? A Very Wrong Website (but also nice to post)

Apparently, according to this...

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