Thoughts: 20-December-2009

Tons of snow out there, halfway up my front door. And of course today I have to go into work to run a stupid experiment that just could not wait until January. I curse the project team and its leader.

The Saints got their first loss of the season, Cowboys beat them yesterday. I thought that New Orleans would run the table, but I guess not. Of course this loss may improve their chances of winning the Super Bowl, I still cringe at the memory of my Patriots falling to the hated New York Giants.

I finished reading Kristin Chenoweth's autobiography, A Little Bit Wicked. It was a pretty superficial account, I thought she may go a little more in depth on her philosophy of life and her Christian beliefs while working in an industry that really makes it hard for someone to have a public expression of faith. I did learn that after I turn fifty next month to never ever eat any cookies baked by her, an inside joke from her book. C

Dollhouse (Fox) actually was pretty good this week. Echo and the rest of the Dollhouse regulars are going to take down the system. Maybe if Joss Whedon had gotten to this point much earlier, the show would have had better ratings. B

Nip/Tuck (FX) has a terrible season finale this past week. Point by point complaints:

1. What happened to Julie's mother after she got busted for cocaine possession at the airport? A plot line that just disappeared.

2. Matt was the Mime Robber, one would think that he would be fairly notorious in this media climate. He kills his rapist in prison and nothing happens to him. Then he Christian and Shawn suck out the fat of this death role inmate he gets out of jail? And no media coverage of these plastic surgeons doing this? Where does any of this make sense?

3. And not only does Matt not get charged with murder, he finds out from an inmate that this death role guy is innocent of the crime. What a lame plot development.

4. Wilbur shows up after being absent all season for a cameo dinner appearance. Kind of wondering what he has been up to or do I care at this point?

This season of Nip/Tuck has been quite bad. The show returns for its last nine episodes in January. Maybe the Carver will return and put this show to rest, that was the last time this show was must see TV. F

American Chopper (TLC) had its last new episode of the year and boy did it suck. Point by Point complaints:

1. Jeanette Lee, the famous Black Widow professorial pool player, comes in to get a bike built for her. She comments on how her fans think she inspired the Black Widow OCC bike, which helped put OCC on the map. A bike designed by Jr. when OCC actually did creative and innovative bikes. Sr. vows to build a bike that looks better than Jr's creation. Jason Poole goes to design a bike.
a) First they thrown Jason's design out and do their own design on the fly. No fabrication on the tank, some really crappy looking webbing on the fenders, then off to paint. Jason starts complaining and Sr cuts him right down. So Jason starts trashing Paul Jr Designs to get back into Sr's good graces. So this big better than Jr's bike turns out to be the usual slap together bike that they have been making for the last several builds.
b) Lee gets the bike and she cannot even turn it on. She is the OCC customer that they like the best, one who knows nothing about bikes and accepts what ever they slap together. The paint job on the tank looks nice, showing Lee playing pool, other than that a big ripoff for the customer. No wonder guys like Jay Leno and Billy Joel who know something about bikes were not happy with the OCC product.

2. We get lots of trashing of both Jr and Mikey in this show, one where Mikey gets out of rehab. Sr barely acknowledges it at the show, eating an apple while supposing having this emotional talk with the crew. Then he goes to Grandma Tetuel's house where he trashes his sons for not visiting her and we get to hear from her on how Sr is a saint, which explains why the sons do not visit her. She must hound them to reconcile with Sr. We also find out that Sr does not talk to any of his sons, no surprise here.

3. On the TLC Turbo website, I saw on the message board that Sr is suing Jr. It seems that Jr owns 20% of OCC and Sr wants to buy him out. Problem is that they cannot agree to a buyout price. So Sr is suing Jr for millions. I do not understand why Sr would sue Jr, it seems Jr should be suing? I am sure more information will be coming out on this and I also think that may explain the trashing of the sons on the show. Comments have been very negative toward Sr for this and could backfire with a jury deciding the case. I also find it interesting that Jr owns 20% and still gets fired by Sr. It would seem to me that Jr should be getting a 20% share of the profits that OCC generates. I am very interested in following this story.

This show needs to end soon and it gets worst and worst. F

Oh well.