tonight...

I said to my friend Lee today, that I wished I was either a baseball or a Harry Potter fan. If you are a baseball fan, summer/fall is excellent and fun, or it sucks and is miserable. In either case, you have something to occupy yourself with.
If you are a Harry Potter fan, right now, you are in wizard-geek heaven and I envy you.
It's not that I am against HP, because I'm not. I've read most of the books and seen all the movies and they are fine. But, if someone were to tell me Harry dies in the last (maybe) book, I would say, "Oh. Huh. That's something."
If someone were to tell me Harry does not die in the last (maybe) book, I would say, "Oh. That's something. Huh." just to mix it up.
I'm not enough of a fan for it to make a difference to my life.
So, with no real big cultural/sports/life event on my hands, and with Jenn out of town, I find myself with some time on my hands this evening.
Lee gave me some television on DVD to watch, but I left it all in the car, and am too lazy right now to go get it, so I will do something I don't usually do, because it bums me out. I will channel surf through summer television.
Gah.
Here's some of what I saw.

America's Got Talent. Prime time television. One of the biggest networks, one of the biggest entertainment companies of any kind for that matter, that ever was, in the year 2007 when technology can bring magic to almost anyone. What's on this show? It's a cowboy. A cowboy in gold chaps doing rope tricks. The same rope tricks Buffalo Bill Cody showcased in the 1900's.
Granted, this cowboy had country-techno (I can think of no other term for this music) in the background, his ropes were sparkle-y and he had the aforementioned golden chaps, which were also sparkle-y, to sorta spice thing up.
Also, he seemed to be having the time of his life and was smiling so wide I thought the top half of his head might split off. He got the crowd going and the judges loved him. But he was doing rodeo rope tricks. Ah well. He was good at what he was doing and kinda, at some points, looked like a superhero as he twirled a really big rope loop around his head and the music swelled.
Good for him?
Sharon Osborne did offer to squeeze his little golden "bum" for him. He turned around and waggled it a bit and the crowd went, "Woooo!"
I am new to the America's Got Talent. I am sure this has been asked before, but why are two of the judges for an America's Got Talent show, from England?
I know they stumbled across the perfect combination of judge-types when the same production company created American Idol.
They're using the same format here.
An English prick.
A woman who was part of the music scene, on some level.
And the fat black guy. The Hoff.

The Hoff had a hell of a nice shirt on. You go, The Hoff.


**channel change**
Just For Laughs. I never heard of this show before. It was on ABC. Again, big company, again, prime time.
I guess it's a hidden camera show. The premises were such stretches they were beyond absurd. And it was presented with no speech track. It was just music with laughing at appropriate (?) intervals. I believe it was all shot in Mexico or somewhere else, because it was weird in a not-American way. Going to be hard to paint a clear picture of what I'm trying to say, but I'll give it a shot.
I made it through two segments because I think I was hypnotized.
The first was of a man in a hospital johnny (remind me to tell you my johnny story), who is on the sidewalk with an IV wheel-around thing. You know the IV poles on wheels? I'm getting married to a nurse, you'd think I'd know what to call it. In any case, there he is, in black socks, and a hospital johnny, with an IV pole on wheels, trying to get into a series of taxis.
Try to picture how odd this is. No speech. Just gesticulations and some wacky music and a robotic laugh track. The gesticulations were not even wild at all. If you were going to try to imagine what they were saying, it looked like it would be something like this:
"I need a ride. I have this IV pole on wheels."
"You are in a johnny. That is odd."
"What about that IV pole on wheels? Isn't that odd, too?"
"Ah yes. That is odd. Do you need a ride somewhere?"
"Yes. I do. But how will I ever get in your cab with this IV pole on wheels?"
"Why don't you hang it out the window?"
"Why don't I sit in the trunk, with the top of the truck open, allowing the IV on wheels to wheel along behind me?"
"That seems like an odd idea to me. It could not possibly be legal here in America. Oh, wait. We are in Sao Paulo where the traffic laws are much more lax. What was I thinking? Hop in."
"In I hop."

The second was more amusing, but disturbing.
A man, who is feigning blindness, BADLY, is walking by a Lazy River type attraction at what appears to be a water park. Because, this happens all the time. Blind guys love to stroll through water parks.
He makes a show of finding the leaves on a bush, then, fiddles with the fly on his shorts. He pulls a short tube out of his shorts. He is wearing a backpack which must have pressurized water in it, because when he pushes a button, water shoots out of the tube coming out of his fly.
Okay?
Blind guy. Lazy River with people floating by. Pressurized water being shot out of a tube coming out of his shorts.
He stands near the bush and as people float by, ALWAYS with the backs of their heads to the man, he pushes the button and pretends to pee on them.
Their reactions are not believable at all because all of their reactions should be them getting out of the water and beating the guy senseless. Blind or not, people don't like to get peed on.
Even in Sao Paulo.
Unless they are at least asked nicely first and perhaps dropped a 50.

When I woke from my stupor, I found I had tied all the socks in the apartment in knots, so I know I was hypnotized.

**channel change**
Ellen Barkin in Sea of Love. Whew. Once you get past the puffy shouldered 1987 pleather jacket, she was Das Bomb-o. In order to really enjoy the movie, you gotta try to keep Al Pacino's face out of your eyeballs, though.
Nothing against Kate Beckinsale, or Jessica Biel or any of the other hot chicks of today, but man, give me 1987 Ellen Barkin. Just, whew.

**channel change**
Bronx Bunny. This is supposed to be a comedy puppet show on STARZ, or some other channel, it really doesn't matter. Slapped together puppets who are being controlled by people who don't seem at all interested in controlling a puppet, talking to Chris Jericho about...

**television off**