Monkey Thoughts

I used to be all into watching Wife Swap. Call it a guilty pleasure if you must. It was simple, trainwrecky entertainment without an audience voting people off. But lately, the craziness is getting dull. It's formula now. Usually one of the women (if not both) will start crying over the STUPID shit ever. (Ex: "They put their kids in school? Oh my gaaaaaaaaawd!") Second, they never have normal people anymore. It's the same layout: one family has a wife that loves being a doormat, the other family has a wife that treats her husband like a doormat. Sure they may be pirates or cowboys or s&m practitioners, but it will work out in that setup. They switch and oooh the drama. Not really. One of the husbands is usually a dick about the change and the other cries.
It makes me think that either they keep digging up the same shit, different states, or there are no normal families out there.
That being said, I would be a horrible person on the show. I don't think I could take it all seriously. Or I'd end up kicking someone for being a wuss/asshole/really lame.

Alright, I admit it. I watched again. I couldn't help it. The promo reeled me in.

Two things about this episode.

First, at the end with the dad getting all emotional....holy shit, I must have replayed that scene ten times. I could not stop laughing. Overall, this was a pretty soaked episode in terms of useless crying. But that end. Wooo. Wish I could find a clip of it. Nothing says entertainment like a grown man getting himself into that high pitched squeak sob.

Second- One of the families were the "hands off" type (i.e., kids? what kids?). Thus, they didn't seem to mind who their daughters were hanging out with. Enter the "hands on" mom into this environment. She asks the 15-year-old daughter's friend how old he is. He was 21. Veintiuno. My mouth just dropped. There's so many things wrong with this. Aside from the creepy and the obvious perv factor, there's a definite loser factor. What 21 year old has nothing better to do with his time than hang out with 15 year olds? Shouldn't he be at work or college? You know, with other young adults? Hell, I would have found that creepy even as a 15 yr old. (On a side note, when I used to do theatre in high school, we had some guys who were college students who became somewhat regulars in the musicals/plays. Sure, they were nice guys, but I couldn't help but wondering what the fuck they were doing trying out for high school plays. Did they not have anything else to do? It was just weird. And sad.)

I gotta say, if someone significantly older (who is not a blood relative) even thinks about hanging out with my kids when they're that young...well...first I will kick them in the shins for being a loser. Then I think I would have to kick them harder, perhaps in the nuts/twat.

Yeah. Wife Swap, getting all the issues in the air. *sob*

In other news, the Charlie Brown Christmas Special is airing tomorrow. HELL YEAHS!

I tried to watch Showtime's Masters of Horror last year, but got entirely too distracted. I think the only one I managed to watch was the first one, "Incident on and off a Mountain Road". That was pretty decent. Oh, I did see Joe Dante's "Homecoming", which I found kinda cheeseball and just reeking of "I'm making a statement!". I enjoy zombies, but I'm going to have to draw the line at voting zombies. Zombie suffrage. (Side note- the Wilhelm scream was featured in that one..from a zombie...) I've added Dario Argento's "Jenifer" and Takashi Miike's "Imprint" to my Netflix queue, but that sums it up for my interest in Season 1.

This season, I've been a little more diligent about watching all the episodes so far. Unfortunately, none of them are very good thus far:

-"The Damned Thing" - Tobe Hooper : I have no idea what was going on. One moment, I'm feeling bad for Sean Patrick Flannery, and the next I'm wondering why the hell he just went nuts.

-"Family"- John Landis: So far, the most entertaining one of the bunch. I call it the "Norm" episode.

-"The V Word"- Ernest Dickerson: Um. The dude directed Demon Night staring Billy Zane, and that makes him a master of horror? Actually, this wasn't bad, per se. It just seemed to go on and on. And it wasn't scary after a while.

-"Sounds Like"- Brad Anderson: WTF. Times two. (This is the same guy that directed Session 9 which, if I remember correctly, was also a whole wtf Xs 2 experience.)

-"Pro-Life"- John Carpenter: Hmm...Turns out, if you mate with a demon, your baby with have crab legs. And then there was the "let's perform an abortion on the dude" scene. Believe me, it was as disgusting as it sounds.

Mediocre so far, but I'm looking forward to tomorrow's episode, "Pelts". There may be some hope yet.

I was so excited about Sleeper Cell this past week that I managed to forget about the season finale of Dexter. (Both are Showtime series and pretty good ones at that. Terrorists and serial killers. What more could you ask for? Zombies, maybe.)

I finally caught the finale of Dexter and, although it was nice, it didn't pack the punch that Sleeper Cell did. You know why? Cause they didn't blow anyone up on Dexter. Yeah. Rip off. (My husband tried to explain to me that they weren't supposed to, but that doesn't make it any less disappointing.)

What got me about Sleeper Cell this season is how they developed the characters so well that I was feeling sorry for them. Then I would think "Wait a min...they're terrorists. I'm not supposed to feel BAD for them." And I'd feel all dirty inside because of it.
Sleeper Cell also took every opportunity to show boobs in damn near every episode this season. The FBI meeting place was set in a strip club, so often times the scene would begin with "Woo! Casual boobage..oh yeah, FBI guys". Or end with "there goes the FBI guy...oh look, boobs. No, look longer. Yes, that's it. This is all part of the story line. The story line about boobs."
By the fifth episode in, it was just getting damn ridiculous.

I've just recently started watching Extras on HBO. This is one of the funniest clips from the show..but perhaps cause I was a Star Trek:The Next Generation nerd.

I'm glancing at my TV that is tuned to "The Search for the New Doll" on the CW. I'm not sure how it ended up on this program as I wasn't watching the CW in the first place. But that's besides the point. This show is painful. It makes my head scream. I guess some people *connect* to the contestants or whatever, but the majority just came off as twats to me.
Ooh. Someone has a virus. *gasp* The drama. Let's all cry about it. Some more.
C'mon, now...what IS this crap? And why are they showing them all puke??

Speaking of nonsensical crap...right before this show I caught the last few minutes of "Gilmore Girls" in which they were watching "The Pursuit of Happyness" on a TV. Either a) the show takes place in the future or b) I missed some major plot point in which they reveal their ability to watch current movies from the comfort of their TV. I've never actually watched the show in it's entirety, so I'm unable to say which of the two is the more likely of scenarios.

Actually, I loved the first two episodes of this show.
But I had a disappointing time watching it. See, I heard an ad that the first two episodes were available on "Free Movies On Demand", so I was there. While watching episode one, I saw the first getting it on scene. Then something caught my eye...or failed to. You see, there were no nipples. The woman was completely topless and yet her nipples had been blurred out. Yet, you could see the man's nipples. (Seriously, what is the hangup over nipples? How is a man's nipples not seen as 'offensive' as a woman's? They look the same, for fuck's sake!) I was peeved. How dare they trick me with lack of nipples!
Regardless, I watched both episode 1 & 2 on the free station. Afterwards, it dawned on me that maybe the episodes would be on Showtime On Demand. Sure enough, they were. I just wasted 2 hours of my life watching blurred out nipples FOR NOTHING!
I did what most rationally thinking people would do and turned on the non-edited versions of the show, speeding to the nipple parts so I could see them. Cause dammit, I was owed nip!

*sigh* Overall, it's a damn fine show so far.

Are You Being Served is one of my favorite shows on the PBS stations. It's an older British comedy that ran for quite a number of seasons. Funny shit. Really funny shit. But the cast changed a bit, so you have to catch the right ones (essentially, the early seasons).
My favorite character on the show was Mr. Humphries, played by John Inman, who just passed away this past March.

Here's one of my favorite episodes (in 3 parts)- "Dear Sexy Knickers"

I loved Twin Peaks back in the day. But I just realized a few mins ago that it was only on for 2 seasons. How is it a show that seems to span a good deal of my adolescence only lasted 2 mere seasons?
One of the most notable things I remember about the show, other than the pie and how horrified my mom was that the marketed Laura Palmer diary was chock full of..ah...colorful language, was that my viewing privileges would be revoked if I was an ass that week. It maybe only happened 2 or 3 times, but not only would I be prohibited from watching but my mom would flat out refuse to record it. So basically, there are a few episodes I have never seen.

I mentioned this to my mom recently about how that punishment sucked and she acted surprised that she did that. At least she agreed that it was a shitty punishment.

Pirate Master!

So it's obviously cashing in on the pirate popularity, but on the surface it doesn't sound half bad. But one of my many issues with reality shows is that they seem to get people who just look like real assholes to be on these shows. Can we possibly get non-asshole looking people with normal names? Is that at all possible?

Not that it matters really...chances are I'm still not going to watch.

HBO has what is now my current favorite comedy- Flight of the Conchords. It is all kinds o' hilarious and right up my sense of humor. The premise is basically two New Zealanders who are in a band and living in NY (at least, I'm pretty sure it's NY). Between their somewhat bizarre activities and their attempts to get gigs, the show is speckled with the best damn songs EVER. And apparently, this duo has been around for a while, touring, radio shows, etc. I've been missing out on the fun this whole time.* Hmm..thank god for HBO?

Here's a clip from Episode 3:

*Edited: I've found some of their live stuff on YouTube, and I'm pretty sure now that I've seen them before. Just can't think of when/where.

Tonight started a new season of The Hills, or one of my guilty pleasures as I like to call it. Having shamefully kept up with all the tabloid bickering in-between seasons, I was fully amped to start off this season and got not only one new episode but TWO today. TWO. Sure, I'm sleep deprived, but I absolutely had to see them both.
That Spencer...ugh...I just wish someone would kick him in his stupid grinning face.
This season looks fantastic with drama.
I'm so ashamed.

Another fabulous clip...

Or is every ER promo essentially the same? "THIS will BE THE episode you cannot miss!" Meanwhile, I've missed every episode for the past 10 years and I seem to be fine, thank you very much.

And on the topic of commercials, who the hell decided that a gospel-esque spin on a Mazda commercial would be the way to go? They're damn near praising jesus for that shit. It's a freaking mazda, for crying out loud.

I believe it was "Survivorman" that I was watching, when on came the most intense commercial I have seen in a long time. The product was the "Grabit". The commercial itself was really nothing spectacular. But it was soundtracked (is that a word?) with the most action/suspense-type music I have ever heard in this sort of scenario. It was like "Clear and Present Danger of a Stripped Screw". In fact, I would have bought one of these Grabits based entirely on the music, assuming I had a spare $20 to waste.

That Survivorman show is quite interesting too. I learned how to make water out my urine. However, one would still be drinking evaporated piss water, so I don't know if this is a skill worth having.

One of the benefits of having bred is being able to watch children's shows and pass it off as "Oh, I only watch because of the kids". Sure, it starts out innocently that way. One attempts some bonding time over Noggin and chocolate milk, enduring repetitive songs and invisible tv-land children responding to the physically-mature-yet-somehow-mentally-and-emotionally-stunted adults on the shows. Then one day, you find yourself randomly singing the theme song to Franklin or making Dora the Explorer references in adult social settings. It is inevitable.
That all being said, it is almost midnight and Noggin is still on my TV even though the little Bug has been put to sleep a while ago. Oh, but I haven't been watching. I've been "surfing" on the computer. That is believable, right?
I have to say, as far as children's programming goes, I'm not overly impressed with Max and Ruby. There is a sort of quaintness that I find charming, but I don't think it has much educational value compared to some of the other programs on. I will tell you what makes the show for me though. It's the look Max gets on his face whenever he gets pissed off:

Look at that. It's just precious. I find myself watching the show just to see him get pissed off. Makes me feel all warm and tickled inside.

Came across this video today, which sums up exactly how I feel about those damn yogurt commercials: