Save Journeyman!

I just learned from Slippy Lane that NBC is planning to cancel Journeyman, which I find astounding. Evidently what we need more than an intelligently written and well acted show with compelling characters and original plot lines is American Gladiators and The Singing Bee. Give me a freaking break.

If you haven't watched Journeyman, you should. It's not a flashy show with a lot of big names or explosions, but it's one of those shows where, ten minutes into the first episode, you think to yourself, "Wow, somebody's really put some thought into this." It's like a grittier, better written, less cheesy version of Quantum Leap, with Moon Bloodgood instead of Dean Stockwell. I think we can all agree that's a pretty big step up.



Frankly, Journeyman is about the only new that I can even watch. The new Bionic Woman? Please. It's like Alias without Jennifer Garner. Casting Miguel Ferrer as the requisite surly father-figure is basically an admission that you've run out of ideas. What, was Michael Ironside busy?

And I keep hearing people gush about Burn Notice, a show that tries to get by solely on the nonexistent charisma of Jeffrey Donovan. Whose idea was it to cast this guy as a suave super-agent? He looks like a constipated neanderthal. The best thing about Burn Notice is that if you squint your eyes when you look at the title, you can make it look like it says "Bum Notice." At our house, in fact, "bum notice" has become the standard term for the requisite warning that you're about to rip one. As in, "Dude, did you just fart? You're supposed to give bum notice."

There, now even every time you watch that stupid show you're going to think about farting. My work is done.

Anyway, Journeyman is a show that doesn't make me pine for Lindsay Wagner or think about farting. It's just a damn good show. You can download episodes here.

And if you're already a convert, go here and sign the petitions and whatnot. Hey, they brought Jericho back from the brink, right? Maybe we can still save Journeyman.

I'll be back tomorrow with the caption contest results. See you then.

By the way, you may have noticed that I'm having some problems with my comment page. The humor-blogs database is really crawling lately for some reason. I'm working on it.

Listed on humor-blogs.com.

A-y-y-y!

Do you remember the episode of "The Simpsons" where Disco Stu explains the sales potential of disco records to Marge? Stu points to a chart showing the sales of disco records from the years 1973 to 1976 and says, "Did you know that disco record sales were up 400% for the year ending 1976? If these trends continue... A-y-y-y!"

I'm having a bit of an A-y-y-y moment right now. Generally my site averages around 300-400 unique visitors per day, with around 400-600 page loads. I know, a lot of you would kill for numbers like that, but you have to understand that it was a lot of work to get to this point. It's one thing to say that you'd kill for those numbers, but it's another thing entirely to go out to the freeway overpass every day with a burlap sack filled with mewing kittens.

Anyway, you see those two little icons at the bottom of this post? Yeah, those:

Stumble it!

Digg it!

StumbleUpon and Digg are "social networking sites," which seemed to be the big thing for a while. Maybe it still is. Whatever. Digg has never done me much good, but occasionally someone "Stumbles" one of my post and I get a few hundred hits out of it. And before you get too excited about adding the magical StumbleUpon icon to your posts, remember that only about one of twenty of my posts gets stumbled, and the number of hits I get from it is dependent on how many "friends" the Stumbler has in the StumbleUpon network. Basically, if a serious internet geek who spends way too much time making "friends" online really likes one of my posts, I get some traffic out of it.* And I should add that 99% of these visitors read a single post (if that) and then disappear, never to darken my IP address again. Since I'm really only interested in finding regular readers who will leave nice comments or maybe even buy my book, the net result of all this commotion is about on par with drinking eight MGDs in an hour and a half: A lot of Stumbling that culminates with me urinating in the orchard behind my house.

Sometimes there is an interesting snowball effect, however. In the past it's always burned out after I get around 1,000 visitors, but evidently my Straight Man post hit a chord (count the mixed metaphors in this paragraph and win a puppy!). One person Stumbled it, then another, and another.... So far, the results look like this:



I mean, holy crap, right? Even Saturday's traffic was about double for a normal Saturday, and it shot up like crazy after that. All because of a post that was just some goofy conversations I had with my wife.

Again, if you're a fellow blogger, feel free to add the Stumble icon to your posts (I think there are instructions at StumbleUpon.com), but don't come whining to me if you don't suddenly get thousands of visitors. This is truly a freak occurrence, and it only happened after a lot of hard work and dead kittens.

Still, if this trend continues, A-y-y-y!


*I don't mean to disparage you, Stumbler. I appreciate what you've done for me. But come on. Don't you, like, have a job or something?


Humor-blogs.com never urinates in my orchard.

Caption Contest: Heroes

Hi everybody! Sorry I haven't been around much lately; it's been a crazy week. At times like these I'm glad to have a faithful minion like Grundir to fill in for me. He handily eliminated several memes and made a good showing of doing an almost civil shout-out yesterday. He probably should have mentioned Theresa's review of Antisocial Commentary as well, but don't be too hard on him; it was his first time. And don't take his threats about "tasting his steel" too seriously, by the way. I think he's mostly just trying out a catch phrase. If you're over 4' 2", he is unlikely to slay you.

Anyway, on to the caption contest! It's hard to believe I haven't done this one yet, but this is actually the first time I've inserted myself into Heroes. You know the rules: Post your caption in the comments. Mrs. Diesel and I will pick our favorites and I'll post the top ten in a poll on Tuesday. Oh, and be sure to come back on Monday for a special "behind-the-scenes" look at the making of the caption contest photo.



Have fun!

Listed on humor-blogs.com.

Equal Time

Now that Fred Thompson has announced his presidential candidacy, some television networks are yanking reruns of Law and Order featuring Thompson's character, District Attorney Arthur Branch, in order to comply with "Equal Time" restrictions. The equal time provisions keep TV networks from biasing the outcome of an election by giving too much exposure to any one candidate. Well, except for candidates who can use their current positions to get on the news. And candidates with a lot of money for ads. So, um, basically the purpose of the law, like that of most laws, is to protect rich incumbent politicians.

Anyway, it occurs to me that pulling Law & Order is a rather crude way of complying with the equal time regulations. I did some "thinking outside the box" this weekend and I came up with a much more elegant solution: Rather than decreasing Fred Thompson's time by pulling his show, why don't we give shows to all the other candidates?

To make it fair, the new shows should be fictional programs rather than news or commentary type shows. And by "fair," I mean "fair to me, the viewer, who doesn't want to see any more O'Reilly Factor or Hannity and Colmes type shows." Here are some suggestions:



McCain: D.C.P.D.

John McCain is a renegade cop who doesn't play by the rules. He saw some bad sh-t in 'Nam, and he doesn't have the patience to deal with the politics of the Washington D.C. Police Department. He's sick of seeing criminals go free because of legal technicalities like "search warrants" and "due process." He's been eligible for a full pension for seventeen years now, and the brass would like nothing more than to see him kicked off the force. But they can't deny that despite his unorthodox methods, McCain gets results. McCain is determined not to give up until he has purged the D.C.P.D. of every dirty cop in its ranks, and he doesn't care how dirty he has to get to do it.





Hillary the Vampire Slayer

In this spinoff of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Hillary Clinton is an archaeologist, cooking show host and mother of triplets who has a terrible secret: She is three sixteenths vampire! With just under a quarter vampire blood coursing through her veins, she has superhuman strength and tolerance for marital infidelity, can take sunlight in small doses and isn't quite creepy enough to be exiled from human society. She must be constantly on guard against her nemesis, Barackula, vampire prince and host of Cooking with Barackula.



Oh, Dennis!

Dennis Kucinich stars as Dennis Kay in this wacky sitcom about an odd looking but funny guy who is married to a vapid and unreasonably hot chick. Dennis is an inventor who makes a moderate income from his one successful invention, spray-on socks. Now he stays at home with their three children while his wife Melissa (Denise Richards) goes to work as the tanning consultant for the Miami Dolphins. He's supposed to be home-schooling the children, but somehow his "lessons" always turn into ideas for another invention. Will they be able to thaw out Rufus the cat before Melissa gets home? Will she ever wise up and leave his dumb ass? Will the children ever learn to read? Find out on Oh, Dennis!

The other advantage of these shows is that if they take off, maybe some of these people will give up politics. Any other ideas? We're going to need a lot more shows if we're going to cover all the candidates.

I'll be back tomorrow with the caption contest poll. Get your captions in by tonight!

Did you enjoy this post? There's plenty more like it in my book, Antisocial Commentary. Order your copy and help me to not have to get a real job, so I can keep writing this crap. Thanks!

Humor-blogs.com is a good cop, damn it!

Thank You, Please Come Again

First prize this week went to Joel B. of Crummy Church Signs.

Second Place: Goldennib of The Chrysalis Stage:

Homer: Is he pinching my ass or stealing my donut? He better not be stealing my donut. D'oh!

Third Place: elasticwaistbandlady of The Smiling Infidel:

I'm just reaching to pull out my book you sat on so I can show it to everybody......again.

Thanks, everybody, for playing and/or voting. I'll have another one for you this Friday. And I'll see you back here on Monday with an update on the presidential election.


Listed on humor-blogs.com.

Vote!

Okay, folks. Mrs. Diesel has picked her ten favorite captions. I'll post the poll results on Saturday.

A few of you posted several really good captions, which Mrs. Diesel hates because when she's picked 10 I have to tell her "Sorry, you've picked 2 by ______ and 3 by ______." Then she has to eliminate 3 of them and find 3 replacements, when she really wants to be watching reruns of Scrubs.

Anyway, if you submitted more than one really good caption, you have only yourself to blame if she didn't pick the best one, because you made her cranky.

I'll be back with a new post about some damn thing tomorrow.

The Captions

Homer: Is he pinching my ass or stealing my donut? He better not be stealing my donut. D'oh!

- goldennib


Homer: I'm normally not a praying man, but if you're up there, please save me from this guy, Superman.

- Theresa


Determined to explore every possible promotional angle for his new book, Diesel charmed his way into an untapped market: 'Antisocial Commentary : It's in your crack.'

- Jocelyn


Good God, have Clark Kent and Jimmy Olsen let themselves go.

- Joel B.


Homer (thinking to himself): "Help me Jeebus."

- crazy aunt bea


Mmmmmmmmm forbidden donut.

- justacoolcat


Homer is stunned to see that someone else came to the party dressed as Drunk Lecherous Superman.

- renalfailure


Homer (thinks): I didn't know Bart and Lisa could play the banjo!

- David


I'm just reaching to pull out my book you sat on so I can show it to everybody......again.

- elasticwaistbandlady


Homer, dumbfounded by the news that he only has, and has always only had, four fingers and toes, stares ahead. Diesel's attempt to console really doesn't help.

- charlotta-love

Opinion Polls & Market Research

Humor-blogs.com wants you to buy my book.

Caption Contest: The Simpsons

I've been seeing these Simpsonized pictures of bloggers everywhere, which gave me the idea for this week's caption contest. I Simpsonized myself, made a few Dieselifications, and then inserted myself into a scene with Homer. Neat, huh?



You know the drill: Post your caption in the comments by Monday night. Mrs. Diesel will pick her 10 favorites (if she's not "busy" like last time), and I'll post them in a poll for your voting pleasure on Tuesday.

And remember, today is the last day to pre-order your signed copy of my book, Antisocial Commentary at a big discount. Today it's $9.95 with FREE shipping. Tomorrow it's $11.95 + shipping. Do the math. Order it now!

UPDATE 8/11: I'm going to be gone all day today, so it looks like I won't be ordering the pre-ordered books until Monday. That means you have one more chance to get your orders in. Order it by Sunday night and I can still get you a discounted, signed copy. JUST DO IT.

Keep the captions coming. I'll be back with a fresh post on Monday.

Even humor-blogs.com is getting sick of my shameless pandering.

Aaron Sorkin Developing Show Based on Studio 60

NBC and Warner Bros. TV are back in business with Aaron Sorkin, the mastermind behind The West Wing and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. The new show, tentatively titled A Season in Hell, chronicles the travails of the cast and crew of a struggling television drama.

Coming on the heels of the the much ballyhooed -- and now cancelled -- Studio 60, the new show follows an ensemble cast of eccentric characters trying to put on a dramatic show about a cast of eccentric characters trying to put on a sketch comedy show.

"We think we really have something special with the show-within-a-show-within-a-show format," said NBC's director of programming, Karen Singer. "It really adds a new dimension to the drama." The show-within-a-show is called Studio 7 on Sunset Boulevard. The show-within-a-show-within-a-show is called Live from Studio 7.



The show will star Jimmy Fallon as Matthew Barry, an actor who plays Matt Allen, the head writer for the sketch comedy show; Peter Krauss as Brad Whitley, an actor who plays Eddie Katt, the producer in charge of the sketch comedy show; and Zooey Deschanel as Alyssa Peel, an actor who play Morgan McTiernan, the network's director of programming. Bradley Whitford will play Eric Sorin, the drama's creator.

"My character is a talented writer who is expected to deliver a surefire hit for a struggling network that has just lost several of its most popular shows," Whitford says. "To make matters worse, the network has also decided to air a much better half hour show that is also a look behind the scenes at a sketch comedy show. Also, I'm a cocaine addict. Well, not me. My character. And my character's character."

The show is intended to be an ironic look at the ups and downs of network television. Sorkin notes, "In the show, everyone expects Live from Studio 7 to fail, and it succeeds, while everyone expects Studio 7 on Sunset Boulevard to be a big hit, and it gets canceled after one season. The irony of this is that LS7 is painfully un-funny, while S7SB is borderline watchable."

The show introduces a concept known as "dollylog," a twist on Sorkin's trademark "walk-and-talk" scenes. In a dollylog, the camera follows the actor playing the cameraman as he follows the characters conversing in rapidfire dialog while walking the corridors of the set.

Other Sorkin trademarks are also evident: Characters in LS7 sketches make knowing references to events occurring on S7SB , and S7SB characters make knowing references to Aaron Sorkin's drug problems and other real life drama. Characters at all three levels of the Sorkinverse also make knowing references to Saturday Night Live, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, The West Wing, Sports Night, Lou Grant, Network, The Magnificent 7, MacBeth, Marshal MacLuhan, Thomas Becket, Voltaire, Heidegger, the Epic of Gilgamesh, and Manimal.

On the pilot episode, Allison Janney guest stars, playing a White House press secretary who is unhappy with the portrayal of her on a sketch on LS7. In the sketch she is played by cast LS7 member Allison Jansen (also portrayed by Allison Janney). Whitford's character, Eric Sorin, ends up rewriting the scene to have Matt Allen rewrite the scene to include the press secretary (Allison Janney), as well as Allison Jansen (Allison Janney), playing herself and the press secretary, as well as Allison Janney (Allison Janney) playing herself. When the sketch bombs, the Sorkinverse implodes and Aaron Sorkin finds himself dumped on the side of the New Jersey Turnpike.

NBC also announced that it will be airing a half-hour comedy based on the hit comedy 30 Rock.


See what's behind the scenes at humor-blogs.com at humor-blogs.com.

Caption Contest: Lost

Yes, it's that time again. Apparently a few of you were confused last time about how this works, so let me 'splain it to you, good and slow. Every two weeks I post a scene from a popular TV show or movie. I digitally insert myself into the picture (and no, "digitally insert" does not mean I stick my finger in it, Gawpo). So one of those sorry-ass lost souls below is me. I'm the one whose skin tone suggests I actually might have spent some time on a tropical island.

Your job is to come up with a suitable caption. Submit your caption(s) in the comments before midnight Monday, April 23. I'll pick my favorite ten and post them in a poll for you to vote on them. The winner takes home an autographed digital copy of the picture and possibly some leftover Dharma Potato Chips.

Good luck!



If you don't click on the humor-blogs.com link once every 108 minutes, my teeth will start to hurt.

Is There a Diesel in the House?

I'm a little late posting this, thanks to a surprise trip to the emergency room last night. Don't worry; everyone is fine, more or less. I'll post the details sometime next week. Suffice it to say that there is a reason I refer to my seven year old as "Climber."

Anyway, on to the caption contest! I ended up going with Joel's suggestion of placing myself in the cast of House. I thought it was appropriate, as I have been compared to Gregory House on more than one occasion -- mostly for my winning personality, I think. And since I spent last night at the mercy of medical professionals, it's taken on a whole new air of appropriateness.

Submit your captions in the comments. You have until this Monday at 9pm PDT. I'll pick my favorites and post a poll like last time. Good luck!



One time I dislocated my blog on humor-blogs.com.

The Diesel Caption Contest!

Inspired by your comments on my bad hair posts, I put together a little treat for you: Diesel as Captain Picard on the bridge of the Enterprise! I made myself bald and grayed my hair a bit to seem more dignified and Picard-esque. The dark glasses require some explanation: In the picture of me that I was using, my eyes were squinted because I was in the sun (it's the same pic as my profile pic on the top right of this page). I tried to unsquint my eyes, but there's no unsquint feature in the version of Paint Shop Pro I use. So I said, "Screw it," and gave myself shades instead.



I couldn't decide on a caption to use for the pic, and that's when the idea hit me: Caption contest! Submit your caption in the comments by this Tuesday, and then I'll create a poll where you can vote on the best one. The winner will receive an autographed digital copy of this picture and perhaps some Cheetos I found in my couch.

If this isn't a complete disaster, I may make this a regular feature. Feel free to suggest movies/tv shows for me to show up in.


There is no intelligent life on humor-blogs.com.

The Hair Was Created By Man. It Evolved. It Rebelled.

My hair is getting out of control.

What started with sheer laziness and a vague desire to look like Baltar from Battlestar Galactica has turned into a disaster of Hindenbergian proportions. Or is it Heisenbergian? I can never be certain.



I can't remember the last time I had my hair cut professionally, and my definition of a hair care "professional" is pretty generous. If you own a pair of scissors that doesn't have bright orange plastic handles, you're probably overqualified to cut my hair. Generally I cut it myself -- by which I mean I set my $7.95 trimmer to 1/2" and buzz away until the bathroom floor looks like a scene from a werewolf movie.

What kind of creature could have done this?

I don't know, Sally, but whatever it was, it was big.

I've grown my hair out a few times before. The first was my unfortunate Kevin Costner/Dances With Wolves phase, during which I danced with few wolves but was occasionally mistaken for one. Then there was my even more unfortunate Steven Seagal phase, which had the unanticipated side effect of prolonging Steven Seagal's career by making him look relatively good in comparison. I suppose my selection of Baltar as my current hair role model will eventually seem foolish as well, especially since my hair has thinned to the point where I'd have a better shot pulling off Colonel Tigh than Baltar -- even the John Colicos version of Baltar.



So now I have a choice: tough it out, knowing that even another eight inches isn't going to make me into Baltar (insert your own joke here), or shave it off and start over. I finally broke down and bought some conditioner a couple of weeks ago. I bought the manliest (read: cheapest) conditioner I could find: White Rain, the conditioner with the vaguely disturbing name. In fact, now that I think about it, how manly can you be when you're squirting something called "White Rain" on your head?

Besides, in case you didn't know, White Rain pretty much sucks as a conditioner (I'm comparing it to my wife's fru-fru conditioner, which I used during the transition stage between "I don't need conditioner; I'm a man!" and "Ok, I'll buy conditioner, but I'm not paying more than 84 cents for it.") White Rain is cheaper than motor oil and probably about as effective on split ends. The first ingredient listed on the label is water, which seems like a ripoff -- unless it's holy water, in which case there should be a warning label for vampires. After all, vampires were the original metrosexuals, in addition to being surpisingly litigious -- although it's true they don't have to worry about sun damage, so they have that going for them.

Where was I? Oh yeah. The second ingredient is alcohol. Then comes something chemical-sounding I don't understand, then citric acid, then another kind of alcohol. More chemicals, then "sodium chloride (sea salt)." Sea salt differs from table salt in that... uh, I think it's pretty much table salt. Then more alcohols, acids, and other chemicals. So White Rain is mostly alcohol, acid, salt and various scary sounding chemical compounds. Now I don't know what those scary chemicals do, but I hope it has something to do with counteracting the damage done by dousing your hair with alcohol, acid and table salt.

The good news is that if you've watched Battlestar Galactica at all, you know that Cylons are indistinguishable from humans except that the Cylons pretty much all look like supermodels. The only characters that we know for sure are human are the ones who are so frakking ugly that it's hard to believe anyone made them on purpose. Given that fact, I think it's clear which of the two characters in that first picture is the Cylon.

And homely as I am, at least I'm no Edward James Olmos. Although I'm sure that's nothing that long term exposure to White Rain and Don Johnson won't fix.




This post would show up on humor-blogs.com if I wasn't preoccupied with my hair.

Reality Bites

I don't watch reality TV for the simple reason that I watch television to escape reality, not to be subjected to more of it. The whole premise of reality TV seems misguided to me. How many people become drug addicts or alcholics because they just can't get enough reality?

Reality TV, of course, has about as much connection to actual reality as Court TV has to the reign of Louis VIX. I don't know about you, but a typical day for me is more likely to be dominated by Pointless Meetings and acid reflux than Immunity Challenges and secret alliances. The idea of people being sent to strange locales where they are made to engage in bizarre competitions isn't even original. It's called sports, and it was around long before Thomas Edison produced the first reality show, an intriguing little silent film called Two Spaniards Dig a Medium-Sized Hole. And no, I don't watch sports either. Still too much like real life to me. For me, the less like reality a show is, the better. If I only got two channels and one of them showed Big Brother and the other showed the Teletubbies, it would be time for Tubby Watch-Watch.

The idea behind reality TV seems to be that if you put enough cameras on enough ordinary people for a long enough period of time, something like a coherent narrative will emerge. This, the experiment unfortunately reveals, is bullsh*t. If you film a million monkeys flinging poo, they do not eventually by sheer chance construct Michelangelo's "David" out of poo. And even if they did, it would still be made of poo, a notoriously ephemeral medium. Most Americans can't even name a single 20th century artist who worked primarily in poo, a fact which cannot be attributed entirely to the failings of the school system.

If you want to watch ugly people do boring things, go to the mall. TV should be reserved for beautiful people kissing or shooting at each other. The Amazing Race has the right idea by making sure to include a couple of teams selected purely for their aesthetic qualities. If I were the producer of that show, it would be hella hard to follow because every team would get the caption "Friends/Models." But it wouldn't matter, because when everybody is pretty, everybody wins.

What I really don't get is The Biggest Loser. If you want to pull viewers in at the beginning of the season, don't start with fat, ugly people. Start with pretty people and gradually make them fat and ugly. You could give the contestants prizes for eating the most bacon-wrapped Twinkies or having the biggest self-inflicted oozing sore. The only thing viewers love more than watching pretty people is watching pretty people get punished for being pretty. The Biggest Loser is doubly irritating to me because I had the idea for that show a year before it debuted. The only difference was that in my version the fat people were going to be kidnapped off the street by teams who were competing to bag the biggest lardass they could find, and they'd get extra points for people wearing spandex or lycra. Then each team would train their fat person to run an obstacle course, which their contestant would have to run while the other teams shot at them with pellet guns. Come to think of it, my version was quite a bit different.

Those of you who are my age may remember that reality TV started when producers were forced into airing more "unscripted" programs during a writer's strike during the late 80s. As I recall, sanitation workers in several major cities were striking around the same time, and the results of each strike were similar.


People generally cite The Real World as the beginning of the era of reality TV, but to me it all started with Cops. Now there was a reality show. No "characters", no "stories", no back stories or conflict resolution. No sports either, unless you consider the 500 meter shirtless 'hood run a sport. Nothing but an endless parade of depravity and idiocy. I'm grateful for the lack of coherency on Cops. I don't want to know about these losers' tragic childhood or their inevitable incarceration, release, and recidivism. If you give me too much information, these stories become tragedies. I want to remember these people at their peak -- as the guy who reported the theft of his pot stash to the cops, or the scrawny hippie dude who got the crap kicked out of him by his 400 pound wife. My all time favorite was the drunk guy who insisted he was a CIA agent. When the cop asked him if he could touch his nose with his fingertip, he dropped into a karate stance and said, "I can do this!"

Now if reality was more like that, I'd watch less TV.

Superfreaky

I'm a superhero freak. Er, I mean I love superheroes, not that I'm superhumanly freakish. I am, but that's a topic for another post.

The whole avenging crusader bit? Sign me up. The mild mannered paper shuffler turned nocturnal ass-kicker bit? Oh yeah. The normal-guy-gets-bitten-by-a-radioactive- mongoose-and-acquires-superhuman-mongoose-related-abilities bit? Oh hell yes. I eat it up, all of it.

One thing I don't understand though is why there is such a limited variety of superhuman abilities. Sure, there are different configurations, but it's like these superheroes are all ordering from the same menu: "I'll take flight, superhuman strength, and a side of adamantium claws." The only difference between the Hulk and the Thing is a quarter turn on the color wheel. And the only difference between Spider-man and Daredevil is that Spiderman can tell which one is the Thing without feeling him up.

Take the show Heroes, for example. There's a guy who can fly, a guy who can see the future, a chick who's indestructible, etc. Ho-hum. I'd like to see some more practical abilities. Like how about a guy who can tell exactly what ingredients are in any food that he eats. How amazing would that be? "Sorry, Colonel, but your obfuscation is no match for SuperTaster. I will now reveal to the world all eleven herbs and spices!" Or how about a guy who can fall asleep at will during lousy romantic comedies and then wake up precisely when the ending credits start. Think of the pleasant dreams you could have substituted for Failure to Launch. "How did you like the movie, sweetie?" "Oh, it was fantastic! I especially liked the part where robots ate Margaret Thatcher's face."

My wife is a good example of someone with underrated superhuman abilities. One of her powers is the ability to fit an infinite number of dishes into a dishwasher. Have you ever had too many dishes to fit into your dishwasher? Well bring 'em to my house, because I guarantee my wife can find room for them somewhere between the potato peeler and the ice cream scoop. I don't know how she does it; I think maybe a wormhole is involved.

Another of her abilities is knowing exactly what I'm going to say ten minutes from now. Apropos of nothing she'll say, "Ok, go ahead and say it." And I'll sit there dimly wondering what she's talking about for ten minutes and then I'll say something that I think is really clever, and she'll say, "Geez, it took you long enough."

Her greatest power, however, is the ability to know where everything in our house is, no matter how insignificant it is or how long it's been since she's seen it. "Honey," I'll say, "Have you seen that gummy bear that I had stuck to my face last Christmas?" And she'll say, "It's on the second shelf in the pantry, behind the Ritz crackers."

Now that's a freak.

I'm Awake, Right?

If not, don't pinch me.

I suppose I should know about this already, but I just stumbled across it. I can't find any more definite/recent info, but it looks pretty likely to happen.

Zach Braff Will Play Fletch

I'm hoping they'll explain the origins of the Mattress Police. I mean, for those of you who don't know.

What, It's Funnier Than Becker

Last night I dreamed a commercial for a nonexistent TV show called The Howard Hesseman Show. It consisted of various clips of the show, one of which was Howard saying, "I want to die in these pants. It really wouldn't be heaven without these pants."

Note to big time Hollywood producers: My subconscious is available to write your crummy sitcoms at $3000 an episode.

I Can Describe this Show in One Word: Cancelled

Has anyone else noticed that an inordinate number of the new shows debuting on TV this fall have single-word names? Off the top of my head I can think of Smith, The Nine (articles don't count), Heroes, Justice, Vanished, Jericho, Shark, Runaway, and Standoff. It's nice that the TV gods have taken note of what makes for a successful show, rather than just mindlessly trying to match the superficial characteristics of other popular shows. And I thought they were completely Lost.

In case anybody cares: I sort of liked Smith, but it's already been axed. Note to writers: Next time, include a sympathetic character or two. Oh, and maybe call it something more memorable, like Jones. The Nine is watchable, but nothing special. It's basically Lost in reverse: A bunch of disparate characters flashback to the time they were all stuck with each other. Heroes is sort of a half-guilty semi-pleasure of mine (I feel a little bad about kind of liking it).

I haven't seen any of the others, but I do like that meta-show about the late night sketch comedy show. You know, the one on NBC. The one with a number in its name that corresponds to the length of the show. Yeah, that one.

Speaking of badly named shows, there's a new movie out called The Prestige, directed by Christopher Nolan, the guy who did Memento and Batman Begins. It has Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale in it, so it's probably pretty good, but it seems like a wasted opportunity to me. I think I speak for all comic book fans when I say that the only Hugh Jackman/Christian Bale movie I would want to see is Batman versus Wolverine. 'Nuff said.


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