My First House

Like most Americans, I’ve been spending my evenings with one eye on the TV and the other eye on this blog so I knew what new shows I wanted to watch this year. Dice is one member of a very short list of people who’s opinion I trust when it comes to what’s good and not good on TV and at the Movies.

Only 2 times have I not listened to his advice, and I paid the price.

Things are tough for me this year. I have to be extra selective because I’m “gazelle intense” in my battle against debt (see daveramsey.com) so I’ve given up my DishNetwork and my DVR, for a 40-foot antenna and an analog DVD recorder.

That’s right . . . I’m practically Amish.

So, now that I’m technically limited, I need Dice more than ever.

I had a few moments to myself the other night, and I finally watched my first episode of “HOUSE.” Wow, what a show!

“House” has always been on Dice’s list, and it’s one of those shows I’ve always meant to watch, but never have. Well I watched like the first episode of Season 4, or something like that, and I fell in love with this show that perfectly blends the suspense of “Matlock,” the attitude of “Becker,” and the political correctness of “Archie Bunker,” wrapped in the medical reality of “Trauma in the Emergency Room.”

I’m hooked, but troubled.

What should I do?

> Start this season fresh?

> Go back to the beginning?

> Give up and watch it on TV Land in 15 years?

Dice and company, Help me please.

Rosebud and the Death of the Spoiler

Well it’s official! My wife and I finished Season 6 of “24”, Fox’s amazing real-time counter-terrorism action drama. This is one of the greatest modern show’s of all time. If you’ve never watched it, I suggest you Netflix Season 1 and enjoy the ride. To quote a local race track slogan, “We’ll sell you the whole seat, but you’ll only need the edge!”

I’m behind the times. I know that. Some of you are mocking me even as you read this. You are saying cruel things like, “You are so behind, man.” and “Hey, Mister Behindy-Pants.” And even the painful, “Would you like some Pop Rocks in your Classic Coke, Mister 8-Track player, Behindy-Parachute-Pants!”

And although I may not be completely caught up with every current show (I watched the first episode of “Lost” 2 weeks ago) I AM NOT ALONE!

With TV shows being released on DVD, and hundreds of hours of TiVo capacity, and now the revolution of watching shows and movies online, it’s time to end the madness. I’m beggin’ ya!

You see, I’ve learned that the watercooler is no longer safe. You can’t assume I watched last night’s episode of [Plug in your favorite show title here]!

Maybe I recorded it.

Maybe I missed it, and I plan to watch it online.

Maybe I wait to buy the season of “24” on DVD so I don’t have to wait until next week to find out how Jack will escape and find another needle-in-the-haystack lead to catching the terrorist, and yet somehow have a near-miss with that elusive thing called love!

I’ll admit, I had plenty of time. But I watched “Citizen Kane” with Orson Wells for the first time 3 or 4 years ago. Granted, it’s been out since 1941, but give me some time. Our world isn’t limited to 8:00pm on 3 networks anymore. Cut me some slack.

Officially, here and now, I am calling for the Death of the Spoiler.

Here’s what I need to make it happen:

1) Morning News Shows . . . Stop telling me what happened on last nights episode. You’re ticking me off before I’ve had my coffee.

2) People . . . When you call right after a show to talk about it, don’t let the first thing out of your mouth be, “What did you think about the Colts throwing away the game in the 4^th quarter?” Buck Rogers and I paused live TV, and we’re not done with the game yet!

3) Finally . . . Buy a sled for your kids, will ya! You’ll never know what it might mean to them.

--Andy

Workaholic Intervention

For our end-of-the-week attempt to get you away from your work, if even for a moment, I don’t have a link. I don’t have a video file. I don’t have a spoof of a Bobby Brown song filled with tongue-in-cheek British humor and miscellaneous references to office supplies.

What I do have are step-by-step instructions for you to follow for today’s intervention:

1) Turn off your computer.

2) Go outside.

3) If there are kids in your yard, they are probably yours. Go play with them!

Thanks for the privilege of being your blogger this week! Guaranteed improvements next week, as Dice returns.

Finally a Solution . . .

Our American culture is driven by supply and demand. Find a need, and meet it. If you can do that, you will be successful. (Unless, of course the need you find is your own need to be unsuccessful. But even then you would be successful at being unsuccessful.)

I often think about the guy who marketed the commercial toilette paper roll, rather than the 4-inch, 1-ply squares we used to have in the school bathrooms. (Side Note: If we increase educational funding could schools afford stall doors?)

What about the shear genius of the guy that invented cheese-in-a-can! He saw a need, and he met it.

Well men, that was not the end. Another genius has risen to the occasion. Your days of postal embarrassment are over. Let me explain . . .

On any given day you may walk into the Post Office to buy a couple of stamps to mail your bills, a letter, or whatever. You ask for the number of stamps that you’d like. You have the change already counted out in your hand. You find out stamps have gone up in price again since the last time you bought some. After handing over the correct change, the trouble begins.

Looking at the stamps you realize you’ve received one commemorative stamp of the only known picture of Eleanor Roosevelt smiling, one stamp of a dolphin jumping over a unicorn, and an oversized stamp the size of a soda cracker with a quilted heart on the front, and a stenciled message that reads, “Postage paid by an effeminate male.”

I’ve got to tell you this was not the message I intended to send. I don’t want the people at the satellite company to make any assumptions when they get my bill, and sign me up for a free upgrade of the Lifetime network! I’m a guy. I’m male without the “fe.” (I would reference the song “Macho Man” from 1978, but I’m afraid that might contradict my argument.)

Men, you never have to experience this trauma again. As of May 25th a fantastic solution will eliminate female domination of stamp design.

It is Star Wars Stamps. No more oversized girly stamps. No more embarrassing stamp-based assumptions.

From now on there will be no questions. There will be no doubt. Step aside toilette paper roller guy! Not so fast cheese-in-a-can man! George Lucas (I’d like to believe with the help of George W.) has done it again. Your letters will now say, “This mail was mailed by a male.” (With very high midi-chlorian levels!)

Play Me That Mountain Music!

Country music on American Idol! It’s a shame that Dice is off this week. His deep love for country music would have been evident in his commentary on tonight’s episode. In my own personal homage to the songs of the south, I will pepper today’s entry with the occasional, authentic, southern slang phrase.

I predicted before the show that country music would separate the “grits from the gravy” as the saying goes, and I couldn’ta been more right.

I was a bit upset that no one chose to sing a song from the king of country music—Willie (for those of you who may not know him on a first-name basis . . . that’s Willie Nelson. For those of you who are really out of the loop . . . No, Willie is not the 3rd son of Ozzie and Harriet). You may notice that I’m a bit of an extremist on the grading scale. Needless to say, I don’t grade on a curve.

Well, before this gets too “Crazy” (Patsy Cline), we’d better get “On the Road Again” (Willie Nelson), or I might get “So Lonesome I Could Cry” (Hank Williams Sr.), and start singing “The Theme Song from Duke’s of Hazzard” (Walon Jennings). [Dice, those are names to country songs and their singers intermingled seamlessly into a transitional paragraph in an effort to be quaint.] So here we go . . .

Ratings

Phil Stacey - “Where the Blacktop Ends” (A)
For the first time we finally got to see who Phil Stacey is! We knew he had a voice, but we didn’t know why. Then he acted like he has wanted to sing country music all along! “Phil? Phil like the Ground Hog Phil?” You didn’t get an A+ because of a couple cracks and your apparent attempt to deliberately lose this competition by hiding your country roots. (I would’ve done it too, Phil. The last country singer to come out of American Idol hasn’t done squat!)

Jordin Sparks - “Broken Wing” (A+)
This was an amazing night for Jordin Sparks. I was blown away not only by her voice, communication, height, and age, but also by her “guts” to sing a Martina McBride song! But she wailed like a stuck pig! (that’s supposed to be a compliment.)

Sanjaya Malakar - “Let’s Give ‘em Somethin’ to Talk About” (F)
No need to comment on Sanjaya’s song, or his pipe dream of doing “Bonnie Rait justice” with his rendition of this song. He sounded like a stuck pig. (In this reference, this is not a compliment.) What I’m most amazed about is from the interview question. Of all the judges and songs to choose from he didn’t choose Paula Abdul singing “Straight Up”! Sanjaya must go.

Lakisha Jones - “Jesus Take the Wheel” (F)
Lakisha ain’t got the sense God gave a goose. Who in their right mind is gonna choose a former Idol winner’s hit song. She might as well have auditioned with “A Moment Like This.” There’s only one way to do something that gutsy—you’ve got to knock it out of the park. Lakisha didn’t. In the words of my wife, “Jesus, don’t just take the wheel, take the microphone too!”

Chris Richardson - "Mayberry" (F)
Elliot, I mean Chris, was stinkin’ it up tonight. This was just bad. I’ve never been a Chris fan, but I have no clue what he was thinking. Let’s just say it hurt me, and in the words of the late Barney Fife, “Nip it in the bud. Nip it!”

Melinda Doolittle - “Trouble Is a Woman” (A)
This was a great performance, and it was nice for Simon to finally ask for an end to humility. Humility is so offensive. She must be so arrogant to be so humble! (On a side note, I once got an award for being the most humble person in my class. I got a ribbon with a pin; but they took it away from me because I wore it.)

Blake Lewis - “When the Stars Go Blue” (B)
I didn’t get this. I think it’s because he destroyed a perfectly good country song trying to make it something it’s not, and maybe a little because you rarely see his teeth when he sings. (Now you’ll never be able to watch him sing again without noticing it.) But I still like him just for the anticipation that he might beat box.

PredictionsPrayer:
”Please, Lord, if TV is going to be a source of enjoyable entertainment for me, if I’m ever going to be able to relax with the remote in my hand again, I need Sanjaya to go. Granted, this is not a prayer that probably ranks very high on any list of priorities. But I want to bring my every need to You. So please do all the other more important things first, and then eliminate Sanjaya tonight. Amen”

My Only Hope . . .

Our prayers are with those who’ve been personally affected by the shooting at Virginia Tech. There are no words I can share today that will make sense of this tragedy, and rehashing the details will not bring us comfort. I take my comfort during times of crisis from God’s promise to never leave me helpless (Joshua 1:5b), and from God’s power that is so much greater than mine (1 Corinthians 1:25).

That’s the only reason I don’t live in fear in this troubled world. “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for [God is with me]” (Psalm 23:4). Sometimes this world can seem hopeless, and we can get caught in a spiral of hopeless depression. But God offers Hope—in fact He is our Hope.

Imus Not Tell a Lie . . .
Well, by now you’ve heard all you want about Don Imus, and the aftermath of his inappropriate comments. It’s amazing to me how much coverage news stories get today. Almost as amazing as what is considered news today.

Before we get very far, I’m not defending Imus or his statements. I’ve never even heard his program. What is interesting to me is the primary defense given by him and his other defenders. The argument goes something like this: “This is about entertainment, not content. Just because I say racist things to be entertaining, that doesn’t make me a racist.”

As a society that values entertainment above all, we are compelled by this argument to rethink our morality and to contribute to the “Save the Offensive Entertainers” fund.

The big question for me is, “Can I separate my mouth from my morality?”

Every time I open my mouth (or type), I express what I am thinking. Even if I don’t consider myself a racist, if I say racist things, I am at least willing to go that far in my thoughts. Jesus said, “Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.” In a nutshell, you are what you say.

I’m not saying the media never takes things out of context, or that I’ve never pushed the envelope for the sake of a laugh. I’m only suggesting, if I think things are funny that others find detestable, perhaps I should apologize for who I’ve become, rather than simply what I said.

“Hello, World!”

Well, today is my first official day as a “blogger!” I think that I should celebrate some how. After all, not just anyone can be a blogger. There are some pretty stiff requirements:

1) You must have a computer. (That right there eliminates about 7 people currently living in third world countries).

2) You must be able to type. (Actually, you could do that one finger typing thing, so really you just have to be able to recognize the letters of the alphabet.)

So, as you can see, bloggers are an uncommon breed. I however, am not just a blogger—I am a “Substitute Blogger.” I feel as honored as the lady from the local affiliate who fills in for the regular network weather guy when he covers the Olympics. (I would mention her by name, but I didn’t catch it.)

Either way, you are stuck with me for the week. I’ll take a moment each day to share with you a simple reflection on life as I know it, and possibly a bit of commentary.

I’m not crazy enough to hope you’ll read everyday this week; I’m just hoping someone will still be willing to visit this blog when Dice is back next week.

Workaholic Intervention
To continue Dice’s efforts to make this blog a salve for the open wound of workaholic-ism that runs rampant in our American society (not to mention the fact that the odds are you’re reading this at work already), here’s a little something to waste your time on.

Take a walk down virtual memory lane with the “Wayback Machine.” Just click the link below and type in the name of your favorite website (the page you built for your dog or the site of a Fortune 500 company), and then browse through what it used to look like way back when. I’m talkin’ way back! Like 1998!

This little gem should help you waste a good solid 3 minutes of the time your employer is paying you for. This is our little way of stickin’ it to the man.

"The Wayback Machine"