PVR Opinions (Day Old Reviews)

I watched LAS VEGAS This week, and I saw a life lesson. How to NOT say YES when somebody engages, and not end in a fight.

Thanks.

I'm 42. WHen I talk to other 42 year olds, we can sing Gilligan's Island and Green Achres themes together with a smile. When I watched TV as a child there were 3 Canadian TV Stations, and 4 US Stations from Buffalo.

Today, there are hundreds of stations to choose from. Kids won't have the same memories.

But some will, and in a crowd when you make a joke or lines from Thet 70's Show or Saturday Night Live, someone will laugh. Fall in love and marry that person.

I just watched this week's NUMBERS, and was inspired to write.

This episode, Charlie seems to be talking even more math mumbo than normal. Myself, along with the main characters seem to be getting on the brink of irritation. We'll all gone past the point of caring, and we tune out the mumbo till he finishes talking, and then we expect the remedial version using some real world simple example.

In the end, he turns to his brother and asks if he knew you could never bend a piece of spaghetti into two pieces. It will always break into three or more.

He gives a brief history of the discovery of this phenomenon with a light anecdote fragment, followed by some named principle or theory.

His brother asks; What's the point", expecting the example to some how make total sense in context of a case or situation, and Charlie answers; Sometimes there is no point. Sometimes you just bend spaghetti.

From that moment, I wanted to Blog the instant in time. An origin of as personal nature happened.

I know for the rest of my life, that will stay with me. If I am ever in a kitchen and chance happens spaghetti to be within my reach, I may recite it, passing it on to each new generation like I do with the "you can't fold paper 8 times" story or "elephants are the only animal with 4 knees" tidbit I pull out of the air whenever useless trivia is discussed socially.

TV makes me smile when I see the bits of social learning thrown in. Sometimes its nice when TV gives us something to talk about the next day, but remember forever. Sometimes its a life lesson, but every now and then it's a single line, or an interesting visual trick about spaghetti.

The kicker for me, was the follow up a scene or two later, thrown in to make me do a second smile, because they matched my thinking perfectly. As I was pondering the Blog entry where this TV show scene made me happy, but I envisioned thousands of people all over the world doing the same thing. I could imagine people jumping off their couch to the Kitchen to try the theory out for themselves. I even imagined that people wouldn't believe it. I believe in my hart that I can snap spaghetti in two, I just have to bend faster.

Charlie is talking to his brother, scolding him for his attempt to SNAP the spaghetti, not bend it.

I laughed.

Now I may go downstairs to the kitchen, try to bend a few, and tell somebody else about it.

I bet you will too.

I'm only starting with this show because it happens to be the one I'm watching now... and I saw some things worth commenting on.

Cybersmack has a TM and Joel mentioned it. Trademarked. Am I allowed to mention it by name? They either bought it, or must be proud they came up with that word and found it not in use. I find that hard to believe. I probably should have Googled it before writing, to see how unique and un-used the word is.

I don't know if it happens to you, but I can assume I'm not special. You'll be watching some show, and the people on TV get it wrong. They either don't get a joke, or don't see something that seems obvious to you. This happened during the Bonus Cybersmack on this week's THE SOUP (on E! and Star! network in Canada).

Its a weekly version of the show I liked called TALK SOUP, which vanished for a while. Essentially, it's a TV version of what I hope this blog can become, except they have a team of writers and a network, and I have a keyboard. Joel comes out in front of a green screen and does his bits. He reviews, recaps, reminds and mocks, bits from the week's previous television.

It's a great way to see bits you missed, on show's you're glad you don't watch, like Tony Danza's daytime talk show. When they do show a segment from a show you do watch, it's extra cool, because they either saw something you didn't think was funny the first time, or they re-affirm a gag you laughed at. Either way, I enjoy the entertainment. In a way, it's replacing the water cooler, next day at work chat you and your friends might be having at the office or store, where I don't work. Joel is my TV chat buddy... once a week. He gets the same stupidity on Survivor that I do, and laughs at idiots like I do.

Now, this blog allows me to rant about the shows I watch, and I don't care if it finds an audience or not.

But I digress... and you'll get used to that. It was a contender for the name of this blog actually. I tend to go off topic frequently.

The Cybersmack video was a man doing a head-stand against a concrete half wall, and another friend bashing his private area with some bat-like object that crushed into dust.

Everyone goes Woooooooo... in much the same way you would if you saw somebody getting hit in the privates with a bat... only this is clearly not what is happening in the video. I used the words "private area" above intentionally. The bat hits the wall, and dissolves. My guess is the guy's parts were not touched.

Good video, but not Whoo worthy in today's world where stupid people hurt themselves on film daily. Try harder next time E! Maybe keep the Cybersmack segments to one per show. YOUTUBE (your sponsor partner) does it so much better. Enter "ball bashing" and better clips probably pop up.

I should probably do some research before I start to write.

WE CHANGED THAT... WAS THAT A DISCLAIMER?

The other thing I noticed in the episode was they mentioned they doctored videos more than once. Is this something they've been told - or asked to do, or is this self regulating. Dumb people watch TV. I guess they don't want to get sued by Disney when dumb people call or write to complain that Kermit the Frog was an asshole while replacing Ty Pennington.

When I see Jimmy Kimmel say that after EVERY clip they fake, I'll know it's another change in TV, catering to the dumb. Remedial Mode.