The views expressed in this blog do not necessairly represent the views that I have

    I would like to start today with a disclaimer, lest the gentle populace question my motives and background in relation to the diatribe that must surely follow.  I am and always have been (at least since the exunt of my so-called 'formative years') a less than enthusiastic supporter of the medium that we have come to call "television".

    With the exception of sports programming and tales of misanthropic medical masters, I do not find the blather that passes for content entertaining.  Occasionally there will be a show on Discovery or the UW channel which holds some educational infotainment, but for the most part one is adrift in a sea of mediocrity (at best) when one presses the old power button.

    So, with that information firmly in hand, the discerning reader can apply the necessary filters to objecticate (hush, it's my blog and I'll invent words if I want to) the following message.  Thank you and deity-of-your-choice speed. 

It's like the awful dial goes to 11

    I have for some time been a part of an internet site that sends out electronic polls.  I take these surveys and in return I get points.  Enough points earns me something small but nifty, like a Starbucks card or a movie ticket.  (Which, I guess, I should probably claim as income on my taxes.  Crap.)

    Anyway, it's generall fun and almost always related to the entertainment industry.  I tell you all this because recently I recieved an offer to do a poll on the television show "Cavemen".  In exchange for watching the show and answering questions I would receive a nifty sum of points.

    Dutiful person that I am, I tuned in to watch the show.  Dear reader I caution you now to not read ahead if you are weak of constitution, for what followed was thirty minutes of torture the likes of which has not been seen previously on this planet.  

    The pain was immediate, intense and unrelenting.  It was a crime upon eyeballs and brains and quite possibly against the Genova convention.  Chuck Norris should have emerged from a swamp with a knife between his teeth and saved me from inhumanity.

    The show was pure evil.  Pure, unadulterated, unleavened evil.  If this show was software your computer would smother you in the middle of the night.  If this show was a house the walls would bleed.  If this show was gasoline your car would implode.  If this show was a dog it would eat Cujo with a side of Old Yeller (post-rabies.  Sorry if I just spoiled the ending for you there.)

Remember that 'Plot' also means 'grave'   

    The show centers around a trio of troglodytes inhabiting the trendy part of San Diego.  One of them works at an Ikea clone, another is writing his dissertation, and the third has recently moved to the area to take a time out from his (ex) girlfriend.  Hilarity fails to ensue.

    What is wrong with Cavemen, you might ask?  The commercials were vaguely amusing ("It's my mom; I'll put her on speakerphone" still cracks me up every time I see it.), and the concept does have enough material for at least a third-rate Pauley Shore movie, so I will dissuade from making the all-too-easy statement that the show was doomed from the start.

   Indeed, successful shows have been built around ideas with relatively the same amout of depthicality (hush!) (cf: Seinfield, Friends, Three's Company, Gilligan's Island, etc).  No, it is not the premise.  Nor is it the acting.  Given the source material and the lines to be delivered, the actors do an ovation-worthy job of attempting to put on a game face and pull this show along through sheer willpower. 

    The real criminal here is the writing.  Writers, you may remember, were those people that television studios used to employee before reality television became popular.  Their job was to create a fictional framework upon which to hang clever bon mots (French for "cheese bagel", I think) which delight and amuse a world of people.  With a talented writing staff you can turn talking poo into comedy gold (cf: South Park).  With an untalented staff you produce "Cavemen".

Please let me digress

    I could go on about Cavemen, but the show isn't even worth of that much virtol.  Instad I will digress to the show that I wound up watching directly afterwards.  (Yes, my willpower was so low that I actually couldn't stop watching television.  Cavemen had sapped my will to do much more than cry, quiver uncontrollably, and work the mute button during commerical breaks.)

    I take it by now that the reader is conversant with "The Biggest Loser".  If not, the succicent summary is that large people attempt to reduce their largeosity (zip it!).  What mircacle diet to they utilize to perform this transformation?  What ancient yogi secrets release them from their physical chains? What voodoo magic reductifies their bowel coverings?  I will tell you, for I love you, dear reader, with the love that only a blogger and blogee can share:  They excercise and eat less.  Shocking, I know.

   Irregardfully, the recent show had what has come to be know in the post-naked-crazy-tax-evader era as a "Physical Challenge".  If you've ever seen Survivor (don't pretend you haven't), you no doubt now have a mental picture of someone swimming through a jungle river carrying a sack of potatoes on their head whilst pirranah remove various extremeties from the contestants.  This is, you will no doubt agree, the vertiable personification of both "physical" and "challenge".

    So you may ask, what harrowing feat of physical prowness were our contestants called upon to demonstrate?  Were they asked to lift a car above their heads?  Requested to leap across a gaping chasm?  Coherced into a tennis match with Blake (They'd have no chance against Roddick, of course.  But Blake, well...)

    No, this being America we have to scale the challenges down a bit so that everyone can participate.  Their Herculean task was to walk down a hill, grab a flag, and walk back. Yep, and that's not all.  Not only did they have to ambulate all the way down a slight incline and back, they had to do it in under 6 minutes while some skinny bitch yelled at them.     

    Afterwards they interviewed one of the contestants who, on the verge of tears, explained how she was so proud that she didn't give up and made it through the ordeal.  Oh honey, no.  No, baby.  You walked up a hill.  You didn't rescue a child from a burning building; You didn't win the Tour De France; Hell, you didn't even jog a mile.  You walked to the top of a hill.

    Now, I understand that people have different abilities.  When a 1-legged man runs the 100-meter dash I applaud and say 'Good for him'.  But if he was the one who cut his leg off in the first place then I'm not going to call him a freaking hero.  You want to overcome a challenge?  Stop with the damn twinkies and get on a treadmill lady, it's not rocket science.  You don't get to be over 300 pounds without a little bit of help from Mr. Beserk Caloric Intake.  (medical conditions excepting)

Just in time for halloween

    Speaking, by the way, of amputees, if you haven't heard the recent story "Encyclopedia Brown and the case of the 1-legged man who forgot he put his amputated leg in a smoker and had it repossessed and now can't get it back" then you really need to go check that out RIGHT NOW.