The Real Housewrecks

It's true. I watch The Real Housewives of [insert city full of crazy women]. It started with the Orange County babes, after having enjoyed a season or two of The OC ("Califorrrniaaaa...").

At first, it was fun. They were mostly silly, even funny most of the time, with an acceptable amount of bitch thrown in here & there. Good, clean, rot-your-brain fun.

Then before too long, The Real Housewives of New York premiered and I had to tune in. New York City! The Hamptons! Step and Repeat! I didn't even know what that was before tuning in - I learn so much from TV.

Sadly, after a season or two, both shows went downhill fast. The bitch factor went up 400% and the silly, fun ladies were replaced by nasty, backstabbing bitches. The mean factor is astonishing, and maybe that's why I kept watching.

I don't have sisters and am pretty much a loner. I have a few good girlfriends, but they're loner-ish, like me. We don't travel in packs.

Women can be scary, on many levels, especially when in groups. We're deeply twisted and complex. Probably shouldn't be trusted with anything sharper than a spatula.

On top of the intrinsic scary factor of women in groups, it's fascinating and disturbing to watch how celebrity has affected these women. I don't understand it, but like a train wreck, I can't not look at it. Though there are a couple of exceptions...

In NY, who could have guessed that Alex, Ramona & Bethenny would have turned out to be the most normal & grounded? In OC, the smart women left the show early on - Lauri & Jo. And I must say, so glad Tamra left her bitchy, controlling husband - that was wonderful to see.

But the rest of these ladies are insane. Bananas. It seems they must be good for ratings, which is sad. It's not entertaining to watch women tear each other apart - it's just depressing.

And Kelley - Kelley Bensobatshitcrazy - whoa, betty. What. the. fuck. is. happening. there? It's too much. The entertainment factor is gone, baby, gone. All that's left is wreckage and it's sad.

So, I've moved on... my new Lady Hero is Kelly Cutrone, owner/superwoman of People's Revolution. Hardcore business woman who will also do all she can to mentor the young'uns. Truly great to see and rare to find. We need more Kelly Cutrones in the world.

24 Hours of Ass

We *were* watching the last season of 24 and it's so bad, it's not even a fun bad. The writing is still terrible, but this season the writers seem to really hate women - even more than before. Seriously.

Cherry Jones, who plays what you'd think would be a super strong female character - the president of the United States - was slapped in the face last season. When have any of the male presidents ever been slapped? Sure, one was shot in the neck, but I'll take a bullet in the neck any day over a slap in the face.

Now this season all her top advisors are men. Can't have a woman running the country without a shit ton of advice from a stable of stallions - men know best. You just keep your skirt suit straight - we'll handle the rest. There isn't one woman in her executive team. None. And as David just reminded me, last season her daughter turned out to be a traitor.

Then we have another super strong actress, Katee Sackhoff, who kicked all kinds of ass on BSG, in a role where she's emotionally and physically abused by a former boyfriend. W. T. F.? And don't even get me started on how she could possibly work for CTU and lie about who she is. Come ON.

Also returning from last season is Renee Walker, the tough, now-former FBI agent who had some sort of "breakdown" as a result of being undercover with the Russian mob. So destroyed, she tried to kill herself, as we were shown by the scars on her wrists.

Later we get to see her shower and then endure some friendly rape by her former Russian mob contact all in the name of helping her country. Who, by the way, is also a BSG alum. 24 has become the Love Boat of anti-terrorism dramas.

Jack never had a breakdown and he was tortured in China - for an entire off season. Why isn't Jack a cutter? Or at least a chain smoker? Are you kidding me? Jack's also never needed to shower during any 24-hour period. Ever.

And Chloe - hilarious Chloe - kept around for the comic relief we've come to expect. Love her, but she's not respected by her coworkers or her boss. She might as well be a bumbling secretary.

Even Kim, silly, leg-caught-in-the-cougar-trap Kim, wasn't given anything to do other than get a kid into and out of a car and tell Jack to go fight the bad guys. So lame.

I stayed with the show this long because it was fun to watch Jack Bauer holler his way through every show and see hilarious pseudo technology in action. But now I'm done. I couldn't give two shits what happens to Jack Blower or anyone else in the show.

They had some good years. There were a few good female characters in years past, but they were all killed off or put out to pasture. This season the writers have serious mommy issues and might be keeping their girlfriends in deep wells telling them "It puts the lotion in the basket."

I suppose we can blame Kiefer Sutherland for this season - he's the exec producer. It would seem it's Kiefer who has the mommy issues.

Cannot watch this shit anymore. What a waste of time. Obviously I'm the idiot for tuning in. G'bye Jack.

The Douchebags

I'm renaming the incredibly lame show "The Doctors" to "The Douchebags." Who's producing this giant turd? It's some of the worst television I've ever seen.

It's not good bad TV like The Hills, it's just terrible, useless and maybe even harmful. (Some would argue the same about The Hills - totally fair.)

I tuned in today because they advertised "the four Fs women fear": Turning Fifty, Fatigue, Forgetfulness and Fat. I was interested in what they might have to say about fatigue.

First - lots of Fs today - the plastic surgeon douchebag (PSD) can't keep his smelly botoxed mouth shut for any length of time, even if they're talking about vaginal discharge. Even the ER douchebag and pediatrician douchebag know when to shut up for five minutes.

So, they're talking about turning 50 and the things we should do to age healthily, such as weight-bearing exercise for bone health. The PSD butts in to start explaining how as we age, our bones which were solid become like a honeycomb.

No one interrupted to correct him. Three other douchebag "doctors" sat there and said nothing. Then the gyno douchebag (GD) went on and on about how great it is to go through menopause and not have periods while we pop pharmaceuticals to rebuild bone.

Everything I've read about bone-building Rx's tells me they're not as great as they'd like you to believe - they might actually be harmful. They tell the body to build new bone, but the old bone that must be reabsorbed/removed is not. This makes the bone, which is naturally somewhat flexible, lose some of that flexibility and is more prone to breaking. Hello?! But the GD thinks it's fine to recommend we start popping prescriptions as soon as we turn 50. Excellent work.

There was absolutely no mention of working closely with a *qualified* doctor to manage hormone and/or bone health, no mention of nutrition or any supplements that could be beneficial. Just "go for a walk when you can and take bone-building Rx's." Fugging quacks - all of them.

When they got to Fatigue, they profiled a woman in her 40s who's been complaining of extreme fatigue for years. They followed her to an endocrinologist's office where the doctor explained all the tests she would run to try to figure out what was going on, but that all her symptoms may not have anything to do with thyroid.

???

That is so ridiculous I don't even know how to describe how ridiculous that is, especially when moments later the very same doctor said her test results came back as HYPOTHYROID and that SHE'S BEEN HYPOTHYROID FOR YEARS. What the brackafracka?

So, they show her in the doctor's office with the doc telling her all her symptoms may have nothing to do with thyroid, then later it's the PRIMARY CAUSE? Douchebags! What is the fricking point of that?

The *one* thing the endo douchebag (ED) mentioned that I found interesting was B12. The fatigued woman was very low on B vitamins, so it was recommended she eat red meat more often and/or take supplements. The woman said after she had a B12 shot she felt better right away.

In the past week I started supplementing with B12 and it might be helping. I've also had steak a couple of times in the last week and I'm feeling much better now than I have in weeks.

But I lost 40 minutes of my life to this stinking dung pile of a show. Not only is the show totally disorganized and a stupid free-for-all with PSD constantly chiming in about shit he knows nothing about, they give out ridiculously incomplete information and cannot spend a quality amount of time on any one topic because they have commercial breaks every 45 seconds.

They're making shitloads of money on advertising but they're not supplying any useful information. It's one giant popcorn fart after another. They should all be fired. As in, lit on fire fired.

They All Grunt a Little

Woke up to very dark, overcast skies this morning so I crawled back into bed after feeding the lions.

I tried to sleep in but was already too awake, so I watched a little "Breakfast Television" - a local TV news show on Vancouver's CityTV.

Never tuned in before this morning. I hope someone else was watching.

The hosts are chatty and bubbly and annoying and at one point they were talking about female tennis players that grunt and make a lot of noise when they play.

They cut to the guy who's supposed to be the serious news anchor, supposedly a tennis fan, to help name some noisy players, and he says in all seriousness, "They all grunt a little after smoking the ball."

They cut back to the bubbly hosts - one was holding her head in her hands and her co-host sat staring into the camera wearing a frozen grin, unable to react to what had just been said on live TV.

They cut to a split screen with the hosts and the serious news anchor who desperately tried to distract us all from what he'd just said by babbling on about tennis as the hosts sat silently waiting for him to stop.

Thankfully, it was time to show us the clogged roads. I'm looking forward to tomorrow's show.

Post HoHo Holiday Roundup

duplex in winter, poco, bc, canada

Here we are on the other side - January 2nd. Christmas/Festivus came and went in a flash and New Year's blew by in a blink - BLAM - done.

It was by far our weirdest holiday yet, a thousand miles away from home in a different country (sort of) without any family nearby. First holiday EVER not spent with family in some way.

David's company took a long holiday break which we've enjoyed by sleeping in (see previous post about hibernation), staying up late, doing our favorite thing of nothing, watching fun TV, learning to snowboard, playing in the snow, shoveling snow and watching the daily cat show (not in the snow).

I thought about posting more often, but my brain also took a long holiday break. There wasn't much to say other than "It's snowing. Again." or "It's raining. Again." I think I was depressed at one point for about 20 minutes, then I had another cup of coffee and felt better.

It's not so much the snow but the absence of the sun that's starting to take a toll. The days blur together and you can't distinguish one from another. There's no energy source to draw from. Everything looks grey.

The TV provides familiar comfort, as it did last night with a Lethal Weapon marathon. Oh the mullet - Mel's awesome mullet and tight, high-wasted jeans. And the open shirts. Or no shirt. Or the sweaty/wet-no-shirt-fist-fight. Fannntastic.

When Lethal Weapon 3 started David got up and went to bed. I tried to remind him that THIS was the one with Rene Russo and she's hot but he couldn't take any more. The mullet was bigger and the writing even more unbelievable than Mel's hair, but it felt like a big warm slice of home.

Remember when those movies came out? They were SO GOOD, weren't they? Weren't they? You know you loved them - loved them ALL.

Before winter's done I'll be looking for all the bad/good TV there is. It's one of my bestest friends. Happy New Year, eh?

Marvelous mTV Monday

Last night I got my mTV on - The Hills season premier and the premier of a new show that seemed very similar to Laguna Beach, which I thought was odd, 'cause they already have Laguna Beach...

As it turns out, this new show, Newport Harbor, IS Laguna Beach. The actual name of the show is now "The Real O.C." and the location within O.C. is wherever they think the best chance of big ratings might be, or whatever city will have them.

I think Laguna had kicked out mTV, fed up with the image of LB mTV portrayed and the influx of people coming to see "the real O.C." And sinking ratings meant it was time to move, but to Newport? Why not San Clemente where Nixon wandered the beach in his later years? Or Placentia, which is awfully close to "placenta?" A lot of entertaining things probably happen there.

I enjoyed the first two seasons of Laguna Beach and hated the third. In the first two seasons - scripted or not - there were likable characters and foils. It had characters who were relatable in some way. And it didn't hurt that they were all very pretty, but pretty didn't help season 3.

The third season blew and its ratings tanked. It tanked because there were NO likable characters. All the girls were evil or whiny and the boys were just props. I don't even remember any boys being on the show. There was nothing remotely interesting about any of them.

So last night after The Hills, this other show starts and I'm still thinking it's a different show when the LB opening music begins. It wasn't until a commercial break that they used a voice over to explain that they'd moved up the coast a ways and now it's all about Newport Harbor. Not very usable.

And Newport - wow - boring. It looks just like the third season but with 400% more bleach, 50% more whining and 100% less scenery. There's some chick whose father calls her every five minutes. That's creepy. I'll stick with Lauren and her awesome new LA friends.

If you haven't seen The Hills, enjoy MadTV's version - it's super awesome.

New Work Week

Monday through Wednesday, and that's it. Weekend starts Wednesday night and lasts through Sunday night. I need four days off every week. Every. Week.

Not working from home on Thursday and Friday - those are part of the weekend, as in, Me Time. There's no "work" in weekend. Wend. Keen. Deek. Newk. But no "work."

Here's a question, why is ER still on the air? I thought the big shootout I heard about in last season's finale meant they were all killed. Even the hospital - shot dead.

What are they gonna do next? Put them all in a cruise ship ER with patients infected with smallpox that sails into the perfect storm with terrorists and a bomb on board?

Speaking of bad TV, how jacked is it that Mariski Hardtosay won an emmy and how is it Edie Falco wasn't nominated?

Can't believe they gave a statue to Alan Alda & not the guy who played the conniving, creepy president on 24. That makes no sense at all. Some of these must be charity awards.