Television

When I was a kid TV was my life. I was quiet and nerdy and did not have many friends, plus we moved around a lot so TV was the only stable companion I had. I knew every show on all 5 networks and did pretty well without a remote or any type of recording device. TV Guide was my Bible.
Now I find TV more irritating than pleasurable in general. I don’t know if it is a function of age, but I only really enjoy a handful of shows and all of them are non-fiction.

So I have compiled a list of the ten most irritating things about TV. I did not go into specific shows because not only am I not familiar with the bulk of what is out there, but even the shows I do know would take up too much room to evaluate. These are also in no particular order.
You will notice that some form of advertising makes up most of this list. I think most of you will agree ads are out of control. If you don’t, or if you have your own pet peeves, please share, bitchery loves company.

Number One: Icons on the Bottom of The Screen.

You know what I mean, they started out as these tiny little logos on the bottom right of the screen and have gradually turned into these animated shorts, TV characters walking across your screen and turning quickly, brandishing a gun at the unseen bad guy, then turning to the camera with a rugged yet boyish expression. These ads now take up almost a third of the screen…a THIRD! And many times when I am watching a program with subtitles I miss a lot since these little ads/movies can go on for quite a while. When they are finally finished you are still left with the small station logo in the corner. Today I watched a show and durning the entire episode the bottom right corner had the stations logo, the title of one of their shows, and the time and date of it’s next airing. I simply want to watch the show I have on at the moment, I will find your other show later, if I am interested.

Number Two: Ads for Other Shows During Commercial Breaks.

Commercial breaks are annoying, but understandable on network TV since they have to pay the bills like everyone else. But to subject us to a 30 second commercial about another one of their shows? No, sorry, I already saw that commercial on the bottom third of my screen during the last show I was watching. (See Number One) Enough already.

Number Three: Vomit and Needles.

Used to be you could rest assured that foul language and partial nudity would not be heard or seen on TV and so your small kids were safe watching it. Well we have all abandoned that notion by now, but the latest disturbing trend I see is vomit and needles. Before, the guy would bend over and you would hear vomiting sounds but the camera would be on his buddy who was watching him, appropriate grimaces crossing his face. You got the idea from his buddy’s expressions, the guy was sick. Now we are treated to all manner of substances coming out of the vomiter, making me want to vomit myself. The other annoyance is the needle stick. Again, they used to pan in real close just to the millisecond before the needle penetrated the skin and then cut away, but now, whether it is blood being drawn or heroine being injected, we get to see the whole thing. I cannot even watch my own blood being drawn and my father is probably passed out right now from just reading this part. There is no need for any of this. They can’t say any more bad words than they already do, they can’t show a naked body, so they go for the gross out shock instead. Personally, give me “shit” and a boob and I am much happier than vomit and a needle stick.

Number Four: Commercials On Cable.

I will never forget the first time I saw a commercial on cable. It was on MTV in the 1980’s and I felt like the colonies did 200 years ago when they were double taxed on tea (and no letters if my history here is wrong. As an American it is my God Given Right to remember US history as it fits my agenda; just ask any Tea Party member. ) Why was I PAYING for TV and still being subjected to commercials? That’s double-dipping, that’s extortion, that’s Captialism at its best folks.

Number Five: News Anchors With Face But No Brains.

When I was a kid and we all had to walk 261 miles to school in 14 feet of snow, barefoot and in bikinis, The man who read me the news at night more than likely also wrote the story and sometimes was even there on the scene. The guy giving me the weather had gone to college to become a Meteorologist, not modeling school. They sometimes had real reporters in the trenches during the Viet Nam war, reporting as they sat side by side with our boys. There was a realism there that current reporters lack (with a few exceptions, Anderson Cooper comes to mind) This current batch of reporters are usually speaking to me 5 feet from a waiting escape helicopter on top of a building 10 miles from the closets gunfire. And they choose these guys and gals that have some sort of accent, usually British, to make it feel more dangerous or international or something. When was the last time you saw an ugly newscaster? Don’t you just know in the back of your minds that this woman did not get her degree in journalism but probably got a scholarship in communications for winning the Miss Georgia Peach contest? And this runs into

Number Six: Documentaries and Newscasts that Mispronounce Words.

Okay all you Botoxed chuckleheads, look up the pronunciation of these words before you go on the air again:
Extraordinary
Nuclear
Electoral
Affidavit
Candidate
Federal

The list goes on and on (I keep a notebook) and for the love of Pete STOP saying “gone missing”, you sound like someone with no teeth sporting a banjo and a sixth toe. Oh and if you do not own a rebel flag then please, the plural of beer, in polite society, is still beer, no “s”. I don’t care what Webster says.

Number Seven: Longer Commercial Breaks

TV used to be the best friend of the insomniac. Until that American flag popped up on the screen and the national anthem began to play (signaling the station was signing off for you whipper snappers) you could find some great old movie or a few old sitcoms until dawn. They may not have been the best in programming, but it was better than no noise at all in the wee hours of the loneliness. Now we are fed repeated shows and infomercials that yes folks, we pay for. Example: Wednesday night on SyFy Channel (and they spell it like that now because the patent office would not let them own the phrase Sci-Fi) 8pm is last week’s episode of Ghost Hunters. 9pm is the new episode of Ghost Hunters, 10pm is some new show, 11pm is a re-run of the 9pm Ghost hunters that just aired. Midnight to 2am is a movie and 2am to 6am (sometimes even 8am) are info-mercials. Half hour commercials (that we pay for in our cable bill) for beauty creams, kitchen gadgets, exercise equipment, diet pills, you name it. Has-been B-list celebrities who spent their fortune on plastic surgery trying to recoup their retirement peddling youth in a jar, health in a pill, or the lovely jewelry they designed that usually looks like my jewelry after I accidentally drop it down the garbage disposal.

Number Eight: All Night Info-mercials.

Thanks, in part, to some of The Gipper’s famous deregulations, we now get 3 hour movies on TV that took me only 1:44 to watch in the theater. Your 30 minute sitcom is now only 18 minutes of program on some networks, a full 20 on others. Now a commercial break allows me to not only run to the bathroom, but I can scrub and re-caulk it as well.


Number Nine: Unnecessary Subtitles.

 We are not stupid. We can understand English when spoken with one of the bazillion dialects in this country. We are a nation of immigrants so yes, we understand your Greek, Italian, Persian, Haitian, Creole, Russian, African American accents, we don’t need subtitles! Just look at this map of dialects in the US, and it is not even finished yet and does not include the 8 I found in England nor the other places that speak English like Australia and Canada. http://aschmann.net/AmEng/#SmallMapUnitedStates

And this guy does it for fun! If you google all this you get tons of info from Wikipedia to University studies. I can’t tell you how annoying it is to have distracting subtitles at the bottom of the screen when the guy speaking is from Jersey for cryin-out-loud…WE UNDERSTAND HIM!

Number Ten: Commercials on PBS

 Yes, PBS has commercials and they are liars when they say otherwise. Sit down to watch a show on PBS and you will hear “Masterpiece Theater is brought to you in part by people like you… and Chevrolet, Like a Rock ” then you get to see a 30 second Chevy truck commercial. I keep my blood pressure down by thinking that at least they do not interrupt the shows, but today I read an article that says PBS is now contemplating putting these “sponsor recognitions” in the middle of the shows as well. So basically say bye bye to PBS. Oh and they better say MY name during these “sponsor recognitions”, my buck counts too.
So there you have it. I felt the need to rant about something and since Sarah Palin, my favorite target, has ben quiet lately I chose TV. I almost went after Crazy Eyes herself (Michele Bachmann) but decided that my true nemesis is Sarah and I am going to keep it that way.
Oh and one last thing. Usually I do some kind of remembrance for friends who have lost their pets. This is a little less and a little late but please say a prayer for Holly who was murdered by someone she trusted. We love you Holly, we are sorry we could not save you, but you will always be in our hearts.

Wedding Observations

Unless you have been in the next galaxy over for the past few weeks, you will know that this morning at O’Dark Thirty US time, Katherine Elizabeth Middleton wed Prince William With Four Middle Names.

I am a bit of an Anglophile but my passion is more for the Britain of the past…say… anything pre 20th century, so this really was nothing to me and in a way rather offensive since the royal family did not pay for the bulk of this extravaganza, the English tax payer did, taxpayers who can ill afford such expenditures right now. But hey, who am I to snub a bazillion years of tradition?

I don’t know much, if anything, about either of these people, Kate or William, so this was all very new and foreign to me.

During Kate’s car ride to Westminster Abby She looked confident and mature, and of course a little scared. We get the first glimpse of her dress as she is escorted from the car. It is simple, elegant and dignified, a far cry from the frothy mess worn by Diana decades earlier. And yes, Diana must be mentioned, for her presence was acutely felt throughout, from the media comparisons to the striking likeness in both face and expression of her son, to a gentle spiritual feeling that she was there for her boy this day. Of course Prince Charles attended with the controversial Camilla at his side.

The Queen arrived dressed in shocking yellow head to toe, with her ever present dignity in tow, the regal walk in place, belying her advanced age (she is 85 but her mother was over 100 when she died so Charles may have quite a wait before ascending to the throne).

The ceremony was Anglican, very formal and somber. Kate and Harry, where their input was allowed, had made it more personal, with less formal wedding party attire and a prayer written by the both of them. This bodes well for England I think, which has had so many scandals and high disapproval ratings since Diana and Charles were married (thanks to Kate and William, the monarchy disapproval rating is now down to 11% among Brits). Conspicuously missing from the ceremony were the placing of a ring on William’s finger, and “the kiss”. The talking heads quickly informed us that wearing a ring is a choice for the man more over there than it is here, and the kiss comes on the balcony later, there is no kiss in the Anglican ceremony.

The wedding ceremony and everything accompanying it went very smoothly. William looked relaxed and Kate looked nervous but only a little. One comes away with the feeling she will be able to handle this position, grandmother-in-law from hell and all.

But what surprised me was how personal the whole thing felt. I don’t think you could have a more serious, ceremonial, important event happen in England, an event for the people, for the whole world in this age of instant media. Yet these two somehow made the ceremony theirs alone. William beamed when Kate said her vows and she was equally moved when he said his to her. Several times William, head down, eyes sparkling, suppressed a grin and you could see his mother in him in those moments. They stole glances and their eyes communicated inside jokes several times, yet all well within the royal countenance. At one point the priest (what are they called in the Anglican church?) said to them “you have both made your decisions today to marry “and they both looked at each other like they had a huge secret and I got the distinct feeling there might be a whoopee cushion in Elizabeth’s future. It was almost like they were two public figures who went through this wedding in their own little bubble.

The press reported that they will have their own wedding at a later time, with different clothing, more intimate friends, cake cutting and boogie on down dancing. They are going to have their own wedding, which again seems to reflect their relationship. They both obviously understand and are willing to meet their royal obligations, but they do seem determined to have their own lives, their own marriage and stay true to themselves and what they are building between them.

You just cannot help but compare this day to the day William’s parents married, that “fairytale” day that turned out to be a nightmare for everyone in the end. That day was more formal. Diana looked like a shy, insecure child who was happy as hell yet scared to death. And Charles looked like he was marching down the aisle to his death (which he was in a way, marrying a girl while deeply in love with another woman, Camilla) and giving no emotional support to the girl at his side that day. It reeked of an arranged wedding, of a girl foisted into a life she was much too young to handle, given away in a wedding cake of a dress to a man who didn’t love her, to a family who saw her as a Royal only, to a world where her subjects loved her more than her new family did.

Today was different. Today was not a fairytale, it was a wedding, between two people who supported each other even through the ceremony. Today made me and probably a lot of other women realize that the fairytale is not what we want, not really. What we want is what we saw today. Love, support and hope.

I am sure William had his mother on his mind today, and I hope he felt her smiling down on him, mother and son sharing the familiar shy smile.

Brandy, You're A Fine Girl

Seven years ago Hilda and I rescued the cutest beagle puppy we had ever seen from an irresponsible breeder who obviously had mistreated her. She was a gift from me to Tommy. Every man needs a dog.

She was very sick and it quickly became obvious to Tom and me that she had been abused, even at that young age. I had taken Hilda with me to help make sure I chose a healthy dog since I am the kind that will melt and bring home the sickest, saddest one of the bunch. Little did I know she was as tender-hearted as I was and so we took her home, the last puppy, but the sickest and saddest nonetheless.

Brandy never was your typical beagle. Yes she was a food hound, and yes, she had those eyes that made you want to give her the world, but she was afraid of guns and storms and hated the car and most anything else most beagles usually love. But we didn’t care. After she outgrew her chewing stage (when she ate a sofa, a chair and a wall) she became part of the family.

Tom and I have been separated for 4 months now and I have only seen brandy a couple of times during those months away. It always astounded me how she seemed to know who I was, even after all that time had passed, and that she seemed to forgive me for leaving her, only wanting to love me and show me how happy she was that I was “home”. I never could say goodbye to her properly when I left again, I could not stand to see her look at me with those questioning eyes, wondering when I would be home again and me not knowing if I ever would.

Brandy started having health problems a couple of months ago and, skipping all the medical stuff, had to be put down today, the cancer having taken over her emaciated shivering body.

She was very sick and in a lot of pain. She could not eat and so it was the only real choice. Tom and Hilda where with her at the vet and me? Well in Typical Diana form, I was not there when someone needed me.

It’s funny how religious we become in times of crisis. No atheists in foxholes, right? I am trying to take comfort thinking that she is with other dogs in a better place, eating nothing but chicken and chasing squirrels…two of her favorite things to do. Oh, and sneaking up on the sofa when she thinks no one is looking.

Brandy, we loved you. I hope you know that. We may have not been the best owners you could have had, but we loved you and cared for you the best we could and I hope wherever you are, you know that. I also hope you know that if it were at all possible I would have been there for you. As for me, I am going to remember you not as I last saw you, but how you were when you were happiest; half way up that tree at our house at the lake, trying once again to catch that darn squirrel.