At the same time, we recognize that not everyone out there loves a potty mouth. So if there’s an obvious bad word on a blog, story comment, or message board post, we’ll try to censor it.
It seems though that FOX Sports’ censor can become a little too zealous. This is from This Week in History: Jan. 23-29.
Via Awful Announcing .
[It’s Walter Johnson.]
The Super Bowl, in the eyes of real sports fans, is for the tourists. It’s not just that you must sift through the clutter of all the off-field hype for an interminable two weeks, or that it’s the one sporting event covered by morning talk-show hosts who otherwise have no apparent connection to the world of football today. (Like, say, Tiki Barber.) It’s that the actual game of football, at the moment when it is supposed to be at its glorious peak, is utterly irrelevant. It is impossible to keep up the appropriate level – the expected level — of psychotic fandom when the pregame show is 10 hours long, three-quarters of the people at your party are sprinting into the room when the commercials come on and Vegas is taking bets on the duration of the inevitable Tom Petty nipple slip. When the Patriots and Giants take the field Sunday, a fan can be forgiven for thinking, for the first time, that the game itself is oddly small.
First, this news item from the Albuquerque Tribune:
Police say somebody stole an “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” utility truck from the parking lot of a hotel near the Big-I on Tuesday night — the same day the crew unveiled a new home to a Southeast Heights family.
The show was in town to build a home for the Martinez family, who live in the Trumbull Village neighborhood, known for its history of crime and poverty — a fact mentioned repeatedly on promotional material for the show.
Here’s my idea — Extreme Makeover: Cops Edition.
Bad boys, bad boys, what’cha gonna do
What’cha gonna do when they come for you
The problem with my idea is that four years ago Mayor Marty banned Cops from filming in Albuquerque. “The city’s police officers are portrayed in a good light, but the rest of the city looks horrible. That has a real impact. That’s all people see, and that’s not who we are.”
Tell that to the Extreme Makeover guys.
Eli Manning enjoys “Seinfeld” reruns.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Many NFL players have far worse vices.
But Jay Zollar, general manager of WLUK, a Fox affiliate in Green Bay, this week made it clear that he, not the Giants quarterback, is the master of that domain.
On a video on the station’s Web site, Zollar points at the camera and says, “Eli, no ‘Seinfeld’ for you!”
Yup, the station has pulled its regularly scheduled 5:30 p.m. Saturday “Seinfeld” rerun in an attempt to disrupt Manning’s preparation for Sunday’s NFC Championship Game against the Packers.
I’m thinking Eli can probably afford a portable DVD player.
A truly substantive interview with The Wire‘s David Simon by Nick Hornby.
An excerpt:
[Simon:] But instead of the old gods, The Wire is a Greek tragedy in which the postmodern institutions are the Olympian forces. It’s the police department, or the drug economy, or the political structures, or the school administration, or the macroeconomic forces that are throwing the lightning bolts and hitting people in the ass for no decent reason. In much of television, and in a good deal of our stage drama, individuals are often portrayed as rising above institutions to achieve catharsis. In this drama, the institutions always prove larger, and those characters with hubris enough to challenge the postmodern construct of American empire are invariably mocked, marginalized, or crushed. Greek tragedy for the new millennium, so to speak.
If you’re into The Wire, you’ll want to read this one. If you wonder what’s with all the fuss about The Wire, you’ll want to read it too.
Link via mental_floss Blog.
David Simon responds to Matthew Yglesias’s thinking The Wire has too bleak a vision of the urban world.
You might want to scroll back up to the top to see what Yglesias says before reading Simon’s comment, but the link is to the comment.
On the eve of the fifth (and final) season of the HBO series “The Wire,” Mark Bowden profiles creator David Simon, The Angriest Man In Television.
As The Wire unveiled its fourth season in 2006, Jacob Weisberg of Slate, in a much-cited column, called it “the best TV show ever broadcast in America.” The New York Times, in an editorial (not a review, mind you) called the show Dickensian.
Season five begins Sunday.
Note: Bowden’s profile is admiring but not friendly toward Simon.
NewMexiKen thinks The Wire is so good — and I haven’t even completed watching the first season on DVD yet — that I have acquired all four seasons on disk and — AND — am seriously considering satellite TV after a two year lapse from cable — just to get HBO just to get this show.
If you’ve been watching much college football, as have I — no really — then you are probably very tired of certain commercials.
For example, the Dr. Pepper commercial with the dancing football player who dives off the goal posts. Cute the first hundred times, but stop already.
Or even worse, the Dr. Pepper commercial with all the sweets — candy, ice cream, pie, cupcakes — substituting for Dr. Pepper. Could they possibly make a soft drink seem less appealing?
I’m a little tired of Durwood and his buddies chasing after Bobby Bowden, too. Again, funny — hilarious even — the first few times, but annoying now. Why would Allstate insure that guy? I wouldn’t want to pay premiums to help cover him.
Even the AFLAC duck is getting on my nerves.
Any others?
It’s down to the semi-finals in Who’s the Worst Sports Announcer? and Who’s the Best Sports Announcer?.
According to an upcoming story in TV Guide, Barack Obama says his favorite TV shows all-time are M*A*S*H and The Wire.
I got nothing.
Last night I did watch the first three episodes ever of the HBO series The Wire and find myself hooked. Disks two and three are on their way from Netflix and I’ll probably watch the first three shows again tonight.
Also, I finally got around to seeing Volver, the film that won Penélope Cruz an Oscar nomination, and The Last King of Scotland, the film with Forest Whitaker in his Oscar-winning portrayal of Idi Amin. Both films were superb — indeed, Whitaker was really just remarkable.
Haven’t paid much attention to fall weather elsewhere in the country, but Albuquerque officially hasn’t reached freezing yet. October 29th is the average date for the first frost. We’ve had no measurable rain for six weeks.
Mental Floss has the date covered: Condi Rice, Joe McCarthy & Prince Charles Were Born (and other things that happened November 14).
Crooks and Liars has a video of the Al Gore cameo on “30 Rock.” Predictable — until the end, which made it all worthwhile.
More videos — from cast and crew of Grey’s Anatomy, Lost, Desperate Housewives.
And if you really want the union’s point of view — actually quite interesting — Why We Fight.
Nancy Franklin has a loving and appreciative — and worried — review of the NBC series “Friday Night Lights.” It includes this:
I took a wait-and-not-see approach to “Friday Night Lights” last year, until an unlikely friend recommended it—a young filmmaker who had grown up in Manhattan in a literary and theatrical milieu and had no interest in sports. We were in the Museum of Natural History when we had this conversation, and when she told me that she and her husband were “addicted” to the show, even the animals in the dioramas were so stunned that they froze in their tracks. The following week, I watched an episode, and went from ignorance to bliss.
“If you watch bad television because you think it’s good, you’re screwed up. But if you watch bad television because you like the feeling of watching bad television, you’re OK.”
“Television characters live with the constant worry of being written out of the plot, turned evil or – even worse – killed off. These twelve weren’t so lucky. Honor the memories of television’s fallen legends by testing yourself on their causes of death.”
NewMexiKen has been listening to the radio broadcast of the California-Arizona football game on the Cal network. We all misspeak, but really …
“He hit the right crossbar.” (Isn’t it the right upright?)
“The motivation has changed.” (Isn’t it the momentum that changes?)
“Tuitama is over center.” (Aren’t quarterbacks under center?)
And all these in the first half.
Have you admired Ken Burns’ work in the past but now find it somewhat wearisome? Be sure to see Nancy Franklin’s review of his World War II documentary. She gives a very high rate of zingers return on your reading investment.
The New Mexico attorney general has reopened an investigation into whether the CBS reality show “Kid Nation” violated the state’s child-labor laws and other state regulations governing the welfare of children, a spokesman for the attorney general said on Thursday.
…“Kid Nation,” which is scheduled to have its premiere on Sept. 19, is a reality show that takes 40 children ages 8 to 15 to a New Mexico desert ghost town south of Santa Fe for 40 days and challenges them to build an adult-free society. Several children were injured during the production; four children drank bleach from an unmarked soda bottle and another was burned on her face with hot grease while cooking in an unsupervised kitchen.
From TV Land.
Stop whatever you’re doing and go watch the video!
The other two videos are good, too.
Functional Ambivalent has an insightful look at TV news and its Saturation Coverage — specifically the I-35 bridge collapse.
Thoughtful, well done and worthwhile.
Update: An interesting 1994 brief from The Atlantic concerning Troubled Bridges. Link via The Daily Dish.
Like to learn how to identify constellations, stars, planets and how to navigate at night? Follow the link.
An interesting 90-second map-based presentation that shows the growth of the world’s dominate religions. From Maps of War.
Mathematical proof that girls are evil.
Rejected Google Holiday Logos.
On eBay you can buy Tony Soprano’s Chevy Suburban.
Click cartoon if you need larger image.
And this is just wrong.
But Johnny Miller is the best sports commentator on television.
And, yes, NewMexiKen was once a fan of Mr. Wizard, Don Herbert, who died yesterday. His show, Watch Mr. Wizard, was on from 1951-1964. It was revived somewhat in both the 1970s and 1980s. Herbert would have been 90 next month.
Video via Awful Announcing.