Saturday, December 27, 2008

Happy Holidays...Here's a Rant

If our loyal readers (hey Jorge!) know anything about me, it’s that I always have something to complain about. This whole blog was built on a complaint: Chris and I were apoplectic when a New York Post trade rumor in the summer intimated that Jamaal Tinsley was going to be traded to Denver and we exchanged 15 e-mails about it even though neither of us cares much about the Nuggets. That led to the birth of this blog, which has yet to revolutionize the Internet the way we’d hoped.

(By the way, like most NY Post trade rumors, it was a complete fabrication).

At any rate, here’s a look at some of the stuff that I have to complain about right now:

-Kenny Mayne. Sweet Jesus, ESPN is pumping his stupid web show so much, even Frank Caliendo and TBS are embarrassed for them. Seriously, does he need to be on the goddamned front page twice a week? And the show sucks! Or at least I assume it does. I haven’t actually watched it. But I feel comfortable enough saying that because his Sportscenter segments made a broken fibula seem fun by comparison. And it’s not that I don’t “get” Kenny’s brand of dry humor. He’s just not funny.

-Hey, Lean Cuisine, listen up: you can’t put five pieces of ravioli in a package and call that a meal. That stupid portion wouldn’t have satisfied an anorexic gymnast. I had to down half a box of Triscuits afterwards just to begin feeling full, and you can imagine what happens after one consumes that much fiber. So thanks for a wasted afternoon. On the plus side, I managed to knock out most of SI’s Sportsman of the Year double issue.

-Am I the only one who watched the Federer-Nadal Wimbledon final? Because even though it may have been the single best sporting event of the year, it gets nothing more than a passing mention in most of the “Year in Sports” shows I’m seeing. It’s like the Bigfoot-Neil Diamond SNL sketch from a few years ago- completely mesmerizing, but no one but me seems to have seen it.

-These winter breaks tv shows seem to be taking. Tell me how this schedule makes any sense:
May-September: Reruns.
October- November: New episodes.
December-January: Reruns
February-April: New episodes

Did the networks learn nothing from the tragic demise of Jericho two years ago? You can’t yank a show off the air for two months right when it starts building momentum.

-Speaking of the incompetence of television networks, this deserves its own rant sometime, but their complete inability to grasp the idea that people use DVRs is mind-boggling. You can’t run a show a minute or two past its allotted time whenever you damn well feel like it. Whenever I tape Letterman for the sole purpose of seeing the musical act, I feel like going on a five-state killing spree when I get halfway through the song and the recording ends. The worst part is when you start to see it coming. You’re fast-forwarding through the ads and the Jon Cryer interview (Two and a Half Men, Mondays on CBS!), the bar is moving too far to the right, and you just know there’s no way the band can get the whole song in before the end. For God’s sake, DVR usage is only increasing. Get your heads out of your asses.

Graham

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